


Untitled Soulmate Game

by Ghost_Owl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Soulmate Goose of Enforcement, Crack, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Geese, Humor, Multi, OT3, but happy happy HAPPY ending, goosassination attempts, lots of fluff, the geese beat everyone up so goose violence i guess, this is the crackiest thing I will EVER write, y'all i had a lot of fun writing this and i think you'll have fun reading it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23812069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_Owl/pseuds/Ghost_Owl
Summary: In a galaxy where the Force has crafted soulmates for the people who live in it, there are also sacred guides that appear to guide two lost souls together to seal their soul bond with a fated kiss.Unfortunately, the guides are also loud, feathered, and will bite you.  The guiding experience is not particularly pleasant.Anakin and Padmé's mornings both become much more exciting when they each wake up to pairs of horrible geese hell-bent on leading them to their soulmates.  Obi Wan's already been kidnapped for a couple of days, so two geese manifesting in his cell isn't as big a deal.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Padme Amidala, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 218
Kudos: 979





	1. Birds of a Feather

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this AU idea in a tumblr post a while back and it, like the horrible goose, refused to leave me alone. I was DELIGHTED to find that people on here had already played with the trope, and tho I'm not 100% sure whose idea it was originally, most of the goose fics on here give credit to AO3 user Boxstorm's Check Please fic, so go check them out!
> 
> ***Special thanks to Eli ( [loosingletters on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters) and [@jasontoddiefor on Tumblr](https://jasontoddiefor.tumblr.com/)!) for the _beautiful_ fic moodboard as well as for writing a guide that taught my clueless technologically challenged ass how to actually embed it into the fic!

Anakin woke to a facefull of rough tarp, a burn on his hand from catching what must have been the heat lamp, and a horrible, grating honking noise.

Trying to stand and falling straight on his face after tripping and becoming more entangled in his collapsed tent material, Anakin extended his hand for his saber, ready to defend himself against whatever wretched Agamari wildlife was trying to attack him.

Instead of his lightsaber, Anakin received another braying “honk!” and sparks of pain up the sensors of his mechano-hand as _something_ latched onto his fingers. Anakin swore profusely and grabbed his saber with his other hand, igniting it and freeing himself from the dark fabric constricting him, just as something else rammed into his knees and sent him pitching over onto his back again.

Agamar’s cold weather seeping through his bones, Anakin only had a second to squint in the pale morning sunlight before it was eclipsed by a looming shadowy head with bright, beady eyes.

Anakin didn’t think.

He swung his lit saber at the thing’s long neck.

The saber blade bounced right off, blue light illuminating just what exactly Anakin’s attacker was right before the damn _goose_ honked loudly in Anakin’s face and bit him on the nose.

 _”Grraow, fucking— off!”_ Almost blinded with pain, Anakin shoved out wildly with the Force and managed to launch the thing off of him, taking the flesh off the tip of his nose with it. Now awake, in pain, and more than a little bewildered, Anakin had but a second to lay on his back and catch a breath before the goose filled his vision again, diving straight back down for his face again with a high-pitched hiss.

Anakin did _not_ shriek as he rolled out of the way of the toothed beak snapping at his face just in time, scrambling to his feet and aiming a kick at the bird that was turning and nipping angrily at him

“HONK!”

“Arrgh!”

The stupid sithspawned bird had caught his pant leg and latched on, and Anakin, hopping frantically on one leg, tried in vain to hack it off with his lightsaber again despite common sense knowing that if this was what he thought it was— and there was really no mistaking a Force Goose —then there was quite literally no way to kill one.

Sure enough, Anakin’s saber bounced right back off the shimmering grey, slightly glowing feathers and only succeeded in making the goose growl and shake his pant leg harder.

Despite his throbbing nose, Anakin felt a little laugh leave him at the confirmation that this was indeed his Soul Goose.

He had been waiting a bit longer than was standard for humans who received one and had started to become nervous, but now here was the snarling creature at his foot: physical proof that the Living Force had designed him another soul to specifically match his own.

Anakin’s ears were still ringing from the honk in the face, or so he thought, but as his goose jerked its neck and gave Anakin’s leg a massive yank, his stumble forward snapped him back to reality and the realization that the furious background honking wasn’t coming from his own mind.

Ignoring his goose’s persistent tugging at his leg, Anakin turned back to the tattered remains of his tent. The brown tarp fabric was piled in a heap of poles, unmoving except for the furious lump thrashing around inside it, causing the tent material to rise and fall like a raging sea. The lump was letting out shrieking honking noises, and for a moment, Anakin just stared at it in befuddlement, confused as to why—

“Master! I heard noises, what’s— oh my stars, is that your goose?” Anakin startled at the sound of Ahsoka’s voice, his apprentice having stopped a careful distance away from him and staring at the creature gnawing on Anakin’s leg in cautious awe. “Congratulations!” Ahsoka breathed, smiling widely.

Anakin gave her a harried smile back. “Thanks, I— kriff!”

Two things happened at once.

The goose on Anakin’s pantleg decided it was done being ignored and let go, choosing to snap at Anakin’s much more sensitive flesh fingers instead. When Anakin ripped his hand away with a pained grunt, a tearing noise and a snarl summoned his attention back to the chaos that used to be his camp tent.

He looked just in time to see another glowing grayish blur bursting out of the tent fabric and charging at him.

Ahsoka was yelling, “What the—?“ but Anakin was busy bringing his hands up and managing to catch the _second_ Soul Goose right as it drove straight into his gut and bowled him over, taking all the breath out of him with it.

Wheezing, Anakin used his remaining strength to lift this new, much more infuriated hellbird up and off his chest and away from his face even as this one too tried to catch his nose. His ears were smarting from the grating snarl-honks of the attacking goose and his arms were starting to ache from the beating of the bird’s wings.

Through his frantic gasps for breath, Anakin registered yanking at his foot as the other goose he had forgotten about decided it was a good idea to try and steal his boot.

All the while Anakin lay dying, he could see Ahsoka watching the entire circus with wide blue eyes. As hers caught his, Ahsoka blinked at him incredulously. “ _Two?_ ” she asked.

“Unless there’s more!” Anakin yelled back, wincing instantly at his words and praying to the Force not to jinx him. Groaning in frustration, Anakin shoved his metal hand into the goose on top of him’s mouth, letting the pain circuits flare up as the giant bird shook it like a chewtoy. Noticing in mild alarm that the other goose was starting to succeed in pulling his boot off, Anakin snapped at Ahsoka. “Well, don’t just stand there, see if there’s goose leashes in the inventory!”

Ahsoka jumped, nodding once and tearing off into the center of camp.

Thankfully, Goose Number One had lost interest in Anakin’s footwear, but was now trotting up and yanking at his belt, asking him to sit up, which was difficult with the other goose hanging out around his chest .

Anakin tried to push Goose Number Two out of the way as he sat and just got another deafening “HONK!” in the face and a cuff over the head with a heavy grey wing.

“Pff— okay, alright!” Anakin spat feathers out of his mouth and tried to scoot away from the pair of geese with his hands raised, halting at the threatening raising of their wings and loudened hissing. “Look, you don’t need to be assholes about this, I know what you are and I know who my soulmate is!—“

Anakin sighed as he was honked into silence, the pair of geese now seeming to be competing in who could blast his eardrums out first. Jerking his knee away from a warning nip, he ran a hand over his face.

Then pulled it right away because this was the hand covered in goose slobber and Force did it reek, fucking _nasty._

Sighing, Anakin turned his face into his shoulder to try and wipe the goose spit off on his tabards, looking back up in exasperation at his two new, vicious, literal winged wingmen.

“But why are there _two_ of you?” he asked.

“HONK!”

“Yeah, that doesn’t—“

_”HONK!”_

If there was one general rule the Jedi liked to fall back on when the universe was trying its damndest to not make sense, it was that the Force worked in mysterious ways.

Nevertheless, it sure would be nice if anyone could figure out why the geese came.

Since the dawn of time, the Force had always created certain individuals with soul connections. Not everyone’s soul was connected, but those who were were almost always proven to have longer, happier, more prosperous lives in the presence of their other pieces.

In such a vast galaxy, however, the chances of finding ones soulmate on their own were zero to none, so the Force had also developed Soul Guardians, spirit guides meant to appear when the time was right and guide people to their soulmate.

Why said spirit guardians were vicious spectral birds called geese that could not be killed, had violent tempers, whose methods of “guiding” their assigned souls to matches were terror and harassment, and who would not return to the Living Force until the moment the two souls shared a kiss?

Well, no one had quite figured out the answer to that yet.

Master Yoda said that the Force had a sense of humor.

The Jedi, possessing the Force Sensitivity that they did, had spent centuries upon century of studying the Force Goose phenomena, and yet, very little had been discovered.

Unhelpfully, the Jedi conclusion was little more advanced than any of the countless other cultures that had tried to solve the Soul Goose mystery: that the geese could appear to any sentient species, any gender, any age, anyone whose soul was destined to not be alone.

Sometimes there was one soulmate, sometimes more, the numbering differed, but the general way that it worked was that the geese would appear at a random point in ones life, when your soul determined it was ready to be joined, and would remain by their charge’s side and guide/harass their every moment until the goose found their soulmate.

Once the ritual kiss was initiated, the geese disappeared, never to be seen again.

The Jedi were not ones to doubt the strength of Soul Bonds, recognizing the purity of the Force’s decision above all else, the natural form of the artificial and far more dangerous Dyad that could be achieved through the Darker side of the Force.

For centuries, the Order had helped its members find their soulmate as soon as the goose appeared and welcomed countless visitors that appeared on the steps of the Temple with a companion of the honking variety. Not every Knight in the Order had a soulmate, in reality only about 25% of them ever received geese, but there were protocols in place so that Knights could continue their lives in service to the Order but also live in accordance with the Force’s wishes and chosen partner.

A Jedi could renounce a relationship with one’s soulmate just like anyone else could. The geese weren’t binding, only a singular kiss was needed to make them leave, and then if one wished, they never had to talk to their soulmate again. Some more traditional worlds held far stricter views on the necessity of remaining with one’s soulmate no matter what, but in this day and age, the common consensus was that while most people elected to stay with their soulmate, it was a decision that must be agreed upon by both parties.

If a Jedi decided to remain in contact with their soulmate, there would be mandated leave times for them to go and visit. Their soulmate’s name and information would be put into a special database so remote security could be provided for their home if needed, and that the Order would be able to easily assist any of their now nominal members who may come across dangers from having a Jedi as their soulmate.

About half of the Jedi with soulmates chose to keep in touch, though with the start of the Clone War, the number had gone down substantially.

As for the clones, the situation was more complicated. To all known records, Jango Fett had never had a soulmate. Theoretically then, as his clones, no member of the Grand Army of the Republic would possess one either.

However, as the unfortunate Kaminoans found out the hard way via sudden geese spawning in the cloning facilities and terrorizing the staff members, just because one was a clone did not mean their soul was not their own, so any of the millions of cloned soldiers had just as much of a chance to have a soulmate as everyone else in the galaxy.

Army rules were then created, that service was mandatory, and that if a clone received a goose, they could get their General’s permission to go looking for their soulmate on “Gooseleave”. They were expected to use this to find their soulmate and tell them that the Republic came first. There was legislation already written for when the war was over saying any clones with soulmates were free to go and live with them, but until then, their soulmate must wait for them if they wished to pursue their relationship.

However, it was equally common for a goose to pop up in the middle of a campaign in which Gooseleave would have to wait. For such purposes, the Republic had developed battle strategies to allow the unkillable geese to follow their charges into battle and for the army to accommodate the geese until they could be gotten rid of. While violent, the geese seemed to understand if their charges physically could not follow them to find their soulmate at the moment, and it was well proven that Force Geese did not like droids.

Especially not Separatist droids.

Therefore, devices like Geese Leashes had been developed for keeping ones goose with you, and it was these leashes Anakin was now sitting and waiting for a response from the _Resolute_ about, if the ship’s supplies included any more Geese Leashes as they had none on the ground.

He clutched the pissily bugling bundle in his arms tighter, having created the temporary solution of wrapping Goose Two— or was this Goose One? —up in his only robe like a straightjacket. The demon bird had already shat itself inside it, and on top of the stink, was still able to crane its long snaking neck out to bite at whatever part of Anakin it could reach if he didn’t watch it.

Ahsoka was having little better luck with the other goose, having managed to grab it and relieve Anakin ever so slightly, but had almost immediately suffered with the goose’s large size nearly toppling her, and had ended up with a quickly blackening eye, bite marks down the entirety of one lek, and a good kick in the gut as well as several scratches before some of the troopers had been able to help her put a crate on top of it.

The geese weren’t exactly fond of people who were their chosen charges.

Anyone else who got in their way…

Even now with Ahsoka sitting twitchily on top of the crate, it would jolt forward violently, coinciding with another angry, muffled trumpet. Each time, Ahsoka would tense up in stifled fear, and Anakin would feel a little worse for her if not for his own goose nearly tearing his ear off the last time he had taken his eyes off it to sympathize with her.

Still, he couldn’t help shooting looks at her angry crate and his angry swaddled not-baby, counting them again and again.

_Two. I have two soulmates. It doesn’t make sense? How is there another, when I already have—?_

“I’m not able to leave the planet now!” he snapped at his goose as it once more started straining in the direction of the starfighters. “You’re supposed to wait until I can!”

“HANK!” said his goose, waving its toothed tongue at him menacingly.

“Right,” Anakin muttered, perking up as his comm beeped. Hopefully that was the _Resolute_ , telling him there was actually an entire crate full of Geese Leashes they could easily send down to the planet without getting shot down by CIS forces.

_Yeah, like that’ll happen._

What would really make Anakin’s rough morning was a call from someone else entirely, someone who hadn’t answered any of his comms to her despite him knowing it was the middle of the night on Coruscant, but still too urgent to wait even another minute to find out the truth he had been wanting to happen since forever.

Unfortunately, his comm told him it was Rex, and as he answered it, a migraine began to form behind his eyes on top of the headache that resulted from the vicious headbutt his goose had given him.

“They want to talk to me right now? Like, this very second?” Anakin clarified uselessly.

“I’ve got them waiting on the other frequency as we speak, Sir,” Rex told him.

Anakin opened his mouth to respond, only for his goose to stick its head out of its shitty bundle to bellow into the comm.

Rex’s clearing of the throat sounded suspiciously like laughter. “Should I ah— should I tell them you’ll be here in a moment? They did say it was urgent.”

Anakin broke his staring match with the goose to sigh deeply through his still swollen nose. “Yes, Captain. Tell the Council I’ll be there in three shakes of their little tails.”

“All due respect, Sir, I’m not telling them that,” Rex responded with the curl of a smile in his voice, hanging up to Anakin’s amused snort.

Good humor fading, Anakin looked down at the struggling goose wrapped in his now unsalvageable robe. “Do you think that if I pulled the hood over your face and put you in front of the holoprojector, we could make Windu think you were me?” he asked the bird. “I’m pretty sure the only thing he ever hears when I speak is a bunch of angry yelling noises, and that’s basically what you’ve been doing all morning. How about it? Cover for me?”

 _“ESSSS,”_ spat the goose, lunging for a piece of Anakin’s hair and yanking.

“ _Kark,_ you little— Snips!” Anakin called, trying to wrench his hair out of the goose’s stinking mouth without getting partially scalped. “I need to talk to the Council and I think Number Two’s gonna actually bust through that crate if I try to leave without it. Can you bring it along?” He finally got the goose to relinquish his now soggy and matted chunk of hair with a shudder, jerking the robe’s hood over its head for good measure to its indignant honk.

“Yep, sure thing, Master!” Ahsoka responded in a much less assured tone than her words led to believe. “Fives! Jesse! No walking away, I need your help with this guy! Don’t make those faces,” she added. “You’re wearing full armor, a little goose shouldn’t hurt you.”

“Alright, Commander, but I gotta inform you that I’ve seen those things take out droidikas,” Anakin heard Fives quipping back as he turned to walk to the command tent. There was an almighty _”HAUNK!”_ behind him, followed by yells from Ahsoka and the clones, but when Anakin shifted his attack bundle away from him to check on the others, he found Fives and Jesse securing a wing each with Ahsoka walking at the front, bravely clamping the goose’s beak shut.

Goose One in Anakin’s arms let out a shriek on behalf of its colleague, struggling anew until Anakin had to stop and wrestle it back into submission before their odd little procession continued its way to the command tent.

_It wouldn’t be such a hassle if I only had the one goose. Why do I have two?_

Rex was waiting outside and Anakin spotted his eyebrows rise up into his hairline at the sight of Anakin and Ahsoka bruised and battered as well as the two four foot murderbirds currently being escorted along with their group.

“So those are the newest shinies, huh?” Rex commented, still eyeing the goose in Anakin’s arms suspiciously. Anakin’s goose bugled aggressively back at him.

“Hopefully for just a very short period of time,” Anakin said, peeking his head into the command tent before stopping, trying to figure out how in the Sith hells he was going to contain these geese during the meeting.

To their credit, the two geese were surprisingly well-behaved from the moment Anakin stepped inside the tent and hailed the Council.

When Yoda and Windu’s faces showed up on the little blue projection, he spent five panic-riddled heartbeats terrified that one of the Masters was his soulmate and that was why his geese were calming down. He then reminded himself that neither of the Masters had a giant feathery ball of death at their side to match his own two and that he was being paranoid.

To the Masters’ credit, all he got in response to the geese were a pair of twin eye narrowings, Yoda’s “Your Force Geese, are they?”, and when Anakin had affirmed, a quiet congratulations from Windu and what he swore might have been a small smile if he thought Windu knew how to do those.

Any good will they had gained from Anakin however had vanished immediately at the Council’s message for him, formally recalling him and his division off of Agamar as they had been threatening to do for weeks, even as Anakin had been staunchly lobbying for more time and additional backup.

He _knew_ he could find wherever that chutta enemy droid general was, dammit, he just needed a way to actually move around the blasted Separatist-controlled planet, which meant additional troops if they wanted to make it past the lines of the singular slice of cold, stony outcropping he had managed to gain for the Republic when he landed.

“Masters, if I may—“ Anakin started.

“You may not,” Windu cut in firmly. Anakin grit his teeth. “I’m sorry, Skywalker, but we knew this was a slim chance to begin with, and the Republic needs you and your men elsewhere and not wasting your time and resources waiting for support we cannot send.”

_”Wasting resources”. Yeah, because my best efforts on this stupid ice cube mean nothing to you._

He could feel the irritation roiling around inside him, and Goose One warbled softly at his feet in a way that sounded distinctly judgemental. Force-sent or not, Anakin was not letting a fucking goose criticize his behavior, so he made an effort to shove the frustration and anger back down and roll his shoulders back false-casually. “Understood. I’ll begin leaving preparations right away.”

“Good,” Yoda said. “Your troops back to Coruscant, you will escort. A new assignment for you, we have. Urgent, very urgent.”

At Yoda’s words, a sharp chill rippled its way up Anakin’s spine and he made an effort to suppress a shudder. He didn’t know why, but he was suddenly having a very bad feeling about all of this.

Windu’s guarded expression that Anakin had learned to recognize as _Brace for impact_ didn’t help either as he shared a subtle look with Yoda. “This is actually the purpose of our call,” Windu told him. “We’ve had some concerning news coming out of the Dantooine system.”

“That’s where the 212th is,” Anakin interrupted, not even that sorry about it. _What did you do now, Obi Wan?_

“It is,” Windu agreed with a warning glare. “And we just received an update from their command ship. Four days ago, Master Kenobi went to the planet of Dantooine’s surface to investigate possible Separatist activity. When he failed to return or report in on time, a search party was sent out. They found the bodies of the rest of the clone squadron that went down with Kenobi, but no sign of him. He’s been MIA ever since.”

“He’s _what?_ ” Anakin snapped, electric cold worry coursing through his veins. “You’re saying something happened to Obi Wan half a week ago, and you’re only finding this out now?”

“The _Negotiator_ sustained heavy damage from the last battle it took part in and suffered a total loss of communications systems,” Windu said icily. “Their message to the Order this morning was the first contact anyone’s had with them for almost two weeks.”

Anakin bit back a snarl of worry. _So of course Obi Wan chooses to go do something dangerous when there’s no way to call for help. Force damn it, Master…_

Realistically, Anakin knew first hand the pain in the ass communications blackouts could be, and that the loss of their General had probably been the push needed for Cody or whoever was in charge now to get those comms back up and running to contact help as soon as possible.

That didn’t make him any less furious at Obi Wan, his men, the Council, the damn Seps, himself for not noticing anything was wrong.

He was once again jerked out of his brooding by a sharp beak sinking into his calf, and he let out a pained yelp as he staggered to kick one of the geese off of him.

“Alright, are you?” Yoda asked, having the audacity to sound amused while Obi Wan was in trouble.

“I’m managing,” Anakin said harshly, kneeing the goose’s head away. “So you want me to help find him, right?”

“We would value your assistance, yes,” Windu replied, which yeah, piss right off with that, no one in the galaxy knew Obi Wan like Anakin did, would have a better chance at finding him. Absolutely no need to do backbends to avoid acknowledging Anakin was the best, the only choice for this.

Anakin nodded. “Right. Would it be better if I sent my Padawan back to Coruscant with the troops? I could start my search earlier, I’m closer to his last known location here.”

“No.” Yoda shook his head. “Report back here you should. More information we have for you when arrive you will.”

Anakin tried to protest, but was interrupted by a drawn out “hooOOOONK” from the other goose who had decided it had kept quiet long enough. His mouth clamped shut, face reddening.

“Oh, and good luck with your Force Geese. It’s interesting that you have two,” Mace commented, and that fucker was smiling, Anakin could tell. Before he could say anything else, the Council members made their excuses and ended the holo.

Anakin whirled on his two feathered pests with a pointed finger. “I told you both to behave.”

“HONK!”

“HONK HONK!”

Anakin sighed. “Fine. You’re getting your way, we’re leaving. At least I’ll finally be able to get rid of one of you once we get there, if I’m right about anything. How does Coruscant sound to you?”

One goose honked and pissed on the floor. The other growled and made another dive for Anakin’s ankles.

“Gah!” Anakin hopped out of the way. “Perfect, sounds like we’re in agreement. Let’s go.”

Turning to leave the tent and give marching orders to everyone else, Anakin tried to dismiss the whirlwind of conflicting emotions racing through his head and threatening to overwhelm him.

This was supposed to be one of the happy days in his life, finally finding out who the Force had designed just for him.

Instead, now he was facing the fear that the person he loved more than his own life might not be his match, the fact that there was _two_ geese and not one which meant a change to his preexisting relationship regardless, and the fact that his Master was missing.

Anakin didn’t care about soulmates that much, even if he left Coruscant again with two geese and not one, not enough to risk his Master’s life. Obi Wan was in danger, and removing him from it was Anakin’s top priority.

No matter what else was going on.

He made this resolution right as one goose decided to take a snap that just barely missed certain very tender areas.

Padmé awoke to cries of panic and noises that sounded downright demonic.

Defensive training kicking in, Padmé leaped up with the blaster under her pillow drawn, balancing unsteadily on the top of her bed and freezing at the scene in front of her.

Laying on her floor, babbling in distress, was C-3PO.

One latched onto his leg, one gripping his arm, using her poor droid for what looked like a tug-of-war, were two glowing grey, indisputable Force Geese.

Padmé couldn’t help her sharp intake of breath, which unfortunately managed to alert the three of them to her presence.

“Oh, Mistress Padmé, please help!” 3PO wailed. “They’re trying to eat—“

Padmé wasn’t paying attention to the rest of his words as one of the geese let go of his leg and with an ear-shattering “HOOOONK!” went flying at full speed directly for Padmé’s face.

Shrieking, Padmé dove off the bed and rolled into a crouch, coming up blaster pointed reflexively at the assailant— just in time for the goose to bounce off the bed and clamp its beak around the muzzle of Padmé’s blaster.

“ _Hey!_ No, don’t—“ Padmé wrestled with the goose in vain, she liked that blaster, before finally relinquishing it in favor of getting up and scurrying on top of the nightstand. She didn’t want to actually _hurt_ her Force Goose, even though common knowledge told her she physically couldn’t, she still didn’t want to attack the herald of what she had been waiting for her entire life.

Padmé would confess to being a romantic, a part of herself that had to be hidden once she entered politics, but had never truly left her since she was a young girl reading fairytales of true love’s kiss and happily ever after.

That hadn’t stopped her from falling in love with the idea that there was someone out there in the galaxy just for her, and maybe someone else who was also for the both of them.

As violent and angry as they were, these geese had never really bothered her, and as she watched other people she knew get harassed by the Force Geese until they had found their soulmates, Padmé had always felt the slightest tinge of envy.

And then she had met Anakin, and the Force Goose had still not appeared.

She knew they were meant for each other, knew it from the moment she felt her heart pitch over at his smile, but still no goose.

That was fine then. Perhaps no goose was meant to come to her. No goose had ever came to Sola, who had been infinitely relieved by the fact and went on to marry her platonic life partner and have children of her own in total happiness.

Anakin told her that they had to be soulmates regardless, goose or no goose. If no geese showed up for either of them, then they were fine. If a goose did show up for one and not the other, they had both agreed to at least meet this other person and see if they would be amenable to a polyamorous relationship, as many people in the galaxy who found love before their soulmate did.

But now there was a goose, and she realized just how little she had prepared herself for the reality.

No.

Stars, now there were _two_ geese.

Padmé hadn’t even considered…

Well, she told herself. That just meant there was a higher probability for at least one of the geese to be for Anakin.

Thankfully, her comm was right here on the nightstand, but first she had to brave the goose-infested waters of her floor to save 3PO, who was still loudly soliloquizing his impending doom.

Glancing nervously at the other goose growling on the floor and gnawing at her blaster, Padmé hopped off the nightstand and over to where the one goose had nearly taken 3PO’s arm off.

“Shoo! Leave him alone!” Padmé ordered the goose in her best Queen’s voice. She received an angry bellow in response, the goose letting go of 3PO— “I am irreparably damaged!” the droid bemoaned —and lunging for the finger Padmé had stupidly decided to stick out and wag at it.

“Agh!” Stumbling backwards, Padmé pried uselessly at the goose that had latched onto her hand hard enough to draw blood, tripping over the other goose who had come barreling over at the same time. With a pained cry, Padmé finally tore her bleeding hand out of the one goose’s mouth just as the other started gnawing at her nightgown skirts. Ugh, she forgot how much these things stunk.

Her commlink started beeping from her nightstand and Padmé flailed in its direction, dragging her angry goose along by her skirt hem, the other jumping and flapping with increasingly louder honks and getting feathers all over her room.

_Please let it be Anakin, please let it be—_

_Bail._

_Oh good merciful gods, the Senate session today._

_Shit._

Yanking her nightgown out of the goose’s mouth and flinching as it tore a good sized hole into the skirt, Padmé retreated back on top of the nightstand and answered her comm, plugging a finger in one ear to drown out the now repeated “HONK HONK HONK!” from both visitors.

“Hello, Bail!” Padmé raised her voice to be heard over the clamor, spitting a feather out of her mouth. “What’s up?”

Ever the observant friend, Bail replied with “Padmé. Are you alright? I hear… are those birds?”

“Yes,” Padmé replied truthfully. “My Force Geese seem to have arrived.”

“Really?” She could hear the surprise in her friend’s voice. “Congratu— wait, _multiple_ geese?”

“HONK!”

_“HOUNK!”_

Padmé released a frustrated laugh. “Yes, two of them. I’m, I’m surprised myself!”

“Well, Happy Goose Day, anyhow,” Bail told her, and she could hear the genuine happiness for her in his voice. “I was going to ask if we were still on for caf this morning before the meeting, but as you obviously have other concerns right now, do you want me to tell the others not to expect you at this session? I’m sure Mon can speak for the bill.”

One goose rammed Padmé’s nightstand with its head, and Padmé took the hand from her ear and clutched at the wall for balance. She grit her teeth, trying to think above all the incessant honking.

It wasn’t like Senators didn’t regularly bring their geese to session when they had to, secure parts of the pods had been created explicitly for leashed geese as this was one phenomenon that was universally agreed that no one could control.

But for stars’ sake, she was supposed to _speak_.

Her coalition had been working on this refugee aid bill for months. If passed, it would not only help the countless displaced Republic citizens from the war-torn Outer Rim worlds, but also cement more alliances between Padmé’s faction and others, and put down some heavy hitters who had been trying to tank the bill from the start. She and Mon Mothma had spearheaded this particular effort, and while Mon could absolutely present the bill just as well as Padmé could, and Jar Jar could be sent to vote on behalf of Naboo, Padmé failing to appear could break the very tentative agreements she had made personally with various Senators on the fence and would view her absence as a trick or lack of support.

“HYONK!”

“Okay!” Padmé snapped at the geese.

“…Padmé?”

Right, she was on a call.

“Don’t wait for me for caf, but I will be at this session, Bail. I need to present this. I can handle the geese.”

There was silence on the other end and Padmé knew Bail was debating the pros and cons of asking her if she was certain. A sigh told her his answer preemptively, and she allowed her hackles to lower just the slightest as Bail said, “If you say so. I’ll see you there.”

“Wonderful,” Padmé agreed, hanging up and staring at the two pairs of small, menacing eyes.

“I need to get to my closet,” she told them.

One goose hissed, revealing its horrible, godsawful, oh _why are there so many that’s not natural_ maw full of teeth and tongue and teeth on the tongue.

“I need,” Padmé repeated firmly, eyeing the distance between the nightstand and the bed and the closet on the other side of the room, seeing how many jumps it would take to get there. “To get to my closet.”

The geese honked once in unison, bobbing their heads in unison in a way Padmé was absolutely going to take as a ‘yes of course we won’t kill you, Padmé’.

Padmé leaped, angry bellows of the geese behind her and more feathers flying everywhere, bouncing right off her mattress and tripping over the sheets, falling to the floor. A toothed beak caught her ankle and she kicked it off, baring through the pain and crawling determinedly for her closet doors.

She was almost there, and then there were claws raking down her back— and _why_ did the beasts of this galaxy seem determined for Padmé to never enjoy backless outfits without a layer of concealer? —and wings beating her upside the head, tangling in her hair. Ripping herself free with a yell, Padmé dove into her closet and slammed the button to close and lock the door, the space being designed to double as an emergency room in case of the worst.

Panting, Padmé brushed curls out of her eyes and waited for her ears to stop vibrating from the close-ranged honk attacks, watching the door. She was safe, she was—

There was a _bang!_ as the door shuddered and Padmé lurched backwards, then forwards because _no._ And yet, there it was. A dent in the door.

Padmé sprang to her feet, looking around her closet wildly.

She was going to have to get dressed _fast_.

An hour later, Padmé was off to the Senate building in a speeder containing Dormé, Typho, and his entire security detail that for once Padmé did not accuse him of overreacting for calling.

Dormé was a lifesaving dream who had brought Padmé caf, two Geese Leashes, and a breakfast bar after showing up and watching Typho and his crew attempting to subdue Padmé’s geese without destroying the apartment. Dormé had even taken the time to turn off an absolutely hysterical 3PO, who had been attacked again after Padmé had barricaded herself in her closet. Padmé was going to have to ask Anakin to buff out the droid’s various dents and reattach his arm next time her husband was home.

Padmé pursed her lips as Anakin crossed her mind again. Inside her closet, she had made four calls. Two to Dormé and Typho, one to Mon to explain the situation and discuss final plans that could be passed on to the rest of their coalition, and one to Anakin. Several to Anakin, actually, after the first had not been answered. She had checked to see that he had called her thrice during the night, but had left only a single typed message saying that he wanted to talk to her as soon as possible.

This _had_ to be him saying he had received his Force Goose— Geese? It simply couldn’t be a coincidence.

_But what if it is?_

Dorme’s gentle tugging on her chin brought Padmé out of her worried musing and back to where she was sitting patiently for Dormé to finish with her makeup.

Padmé was just grateful she had taken a shower the night before, because she knew that there was no sitting at her vanity and working on hair and makeup this morning, not with the geese around. So, she had looked around for her most battle-resistant dress that came with a full head wrap and headdress so she wouldn’t have to do any hair and messaged Dormé to bring the makeup kit with her.

As Dormé covered up a bruise on Padmé’s chin, there was a squawking honk from the backseats and another yelp from one of Typho’s security officers as the one of the geese presumably hurt them again.

Upon arrival at the Senate building, the guards managed to get the Geese Leashes on the geese and give the leads to Padmé, who was near immediately yanked off her feet as the geese attempted to take off in the opposite direction of the building. People were stopping to look, and Padmé was strong, but still rather short, and the _last_ thing she needed was a viral holovideo of Esteemed Senator Amidala falling on her face and being dragged off by a pair of geese like a comedy gag.

“HONK.”

“I know, can you just—“

“HONK.”

“Look, it’s only for a little while—“

“HOOOONK.”

Padmé locked eyes with an approaching Banking Clan member. The bastard smirked at her and kept walking.

“Can you go hurt him instead of me?” she grumbled at the geese who were still gnawing the hem of her skirts to shreds.

Instead, the geese abruptly perked up, then tore off in the direction of the side doors, Padmé conceding to hitching her skirts with one hand and flat out running to keep a hold of them.

Finally, after ten different awkward attempts at congratulations, entire hallways full of stares, countless unsubtle holos taken by paparazzi— Padmé could see the headlines tomorrow, _”Naboo Senator with TWO soulmates? Will this interfere with all the other affairs we think she’s having???”_ —one unfortunate incident with goose poo and the Senator from Duro’s shoe, and countless apologies as her geese terrorized numerous aides and other senators, she made it to the Senate arena proper.

It had been Jar Jar of all people who calmed her geese down enough to coax them into the pod she would be sharing with Mon and the delegation from Chandrila, squealing in joy at the sight of Padmé’s “Feathered Hearts”, as the Gungans called them, and running forward to meet them, claiming that Force Geese liked him. Padmé was prepared to see her unlucky colleague mauled instantly, only for the geese to give him relatively soft honks and allowed Jar Jar to take their leashes without complaint.

What happened shortly after, she would blame on her hellish morning and taking the first opportunity for someone to take the responsibility of her equally hellish birds for more than five seconds.

Padmé’s geese sat quietly in the divot at the bottom of the pod designed specifically for any Force Goose tagalongs, their leashes tied to the pod rails. While other nearby pod occupants were giving them nervous looks through the first hour of the session, the geese stayed blessedly silent save for the few stray honks. Far better than some other memorable instances of Force Geese misbehaving during Senate sessions, the most recently infamous being the goose that got stuck in its Senator’s headdress.

At long last, the subject of the Refugee Relief Bill came up with Palpatine yielding the floor to Padmé. Moving her pod forward, Padmé bowed her head respectfully to the Chancellor and gave the dome a polite smile.

“Thank you, Your Excellency. Senators of the Republic…”

Her speech was going fine. Her speech was going great, if she was to be perfectly honest. The geese were still silent. She was just winding down on her closing argument and preparing to yield her time to questions, when everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong.

Padmé made a sweeping gesture with her hand, noticing a goose feather drift off her sleeve at the motion.

Beside her, she could hear Jar Jar snort.

Jar Jar continued to sniffle.

Jar Jar sneezed loudly, stumbling forward with the motion.

Jar Jar tripped over his own feet.

Jar Jar flailed wildly, catching the pod rails for balance.

Jar Jar knocked the Geese Leashes free.

All of this happened in a span of five to ten seconds, Padmé turning to Jar Jar in alarm just as there was a great, horrible sound rising from below her.

One of the geese shot out of the pod, a feathery missile making a beeline directly for the Chancellor’s pod. Padmé could do nothing but watch in horror as with a great yodeling roar, the goose cannoned directly into the gut of Sheev Palpatine, knocking him clean over the side of his pod to the screams of the entire dome.

Padmé’s jaw dropped, standing in the middle of the chaos as the goose flapped back around to perch on the rail of the pod, easy as you please, cocking its head at her.

“Honk?” it asked.

Despite her participation in an assassination attempt against the Chancellor of the Republic, Padmé’s bill somehow passed.

Palpatine, in a feat of strength and agility not many had expected from a man his age, had managed to catch part of the underside of his pod as he tumbled, preventing him from plummeting hundreds of feet to the faraway dome floor.

Padmé had watched him hang there, waiting for Senate security to come rescue him, struck silent and mortified and completely frozen in place, before Mon took control and steered the pod back to its original position, security meeting them as they arrived and stressing that while they understood Senator Amidala could not have anticipated her ah, afflictions to do what they did— the man saying this jumped back as Padmé’s non-Separatist goose hissed and snapped at him —would the Madam Senator consent to waiting outside the session with her afflictions for the safety of the other members?

Padmé had smiled in what was definitely more of a grimace and said that she wasn’t feeling that well, she might just go home.

The entire incident had been televised, so when Padmé had appeared at her speeder towing her two happily honking geese behind her with a face that looked like death, Typho said nothing and drove them back home.

On the way, Padmé drafted and composed a detailed apology message on her pad, only having to stop Goose One from pitching itself over the side of the speeder once and Goose Two from trying to eat Typho’s hat twice— on the third time, it succeeded. Sending the message off to the Chancellor along with a request for an in-person meeting as soon as possible, Padmé leaned back in her seat and shut her eyes, trying to block out this entire day.

_”HJONK!”_

“Ow,” said Padmé, only half-registering one of the geese gnawing on her arm, this being the same arm they had already scratched up this morning. She supposed it was going to start bleeding again—

Her comm chimed as they reached her balcony and Padmé started, surprised. The Chancellor’s secretary must have been staring right at their pad when her message came through, she thought, quickly bringing up her comm to answer.

_Anakin._

Heart in her throat, Padmé felt a moment of cowardice, thanking Typho and hurrying inside, for once being the one to haul the geese after her instead of the other way around.

They had promised to stay with each other regardless of the soulmate situation, but what if—

One of Padmé’s murderbirds solved the situation by honking and making a snap for her comm.

“Hey!” she hissed, tugging it away and in her hurry accidentally pressed the answer option.

As the blue projection shimmered into view, Padmé slid down the wall with a thunk, resolving to face the music. Anakin’s face didn’t appear in the projection.

Instead, she had her husband’s voice saying, “Surprise!” and the massive glaring head of a goose.

Padmé gasped.

The goose on Anakin’s end opened its toothy mouth and tried to eat the recorder.

“No, no, no, you little— stop!” Anakin was squawking back at it, coming into view with a fearful smile on his face.

Padmé found herself struck dumb.

_It’s— it’s really him._

“Well?” Anakin asked, smiling at her hopefully. She could see the worry in his eyes. He looked so very tired. “Mine showed up this morning,” Anakin told her, looking anywhere but her face. “Did— did you—“

One of Padmé’s geese took the opportunity to stick its face in front of the recorder and give it a firm holler. Anakin’s goose started honking immediately in response, so between that one and both of her own starting up in a full frenzy, Padmé almost didn’t hear Anakin’s whoop. “Padmé! You have— you have a goose! I have a goose! We did it! Angel, we’re soulmates!”

Padmé could feel the tears building up in her eyes as her bruised face split into a smile. “We’re soulmates,” she whispered back, peering over the grey cloud of feathers in front of her to catch her husband’s— her _soulmate’s_ beaming, brilliant smile.

“Wait a minute,” Anakin said, cocking his head to see the tangled ball of geese swarming in front of Padmé’s camera. “Do you have more than one goose too?”

Obi Wan opened his eyes to darkness, which wasn’t new considering his situation for the past couple of days.

If Cody were here, he would absolutely be hitting him with the “I told you so”, which would be fair, considering that the trap on Dantooine hadn’t been the first trap Obi Wan had waltzed into on this cursed campaign.

The initial mission directive had been to head to the Raioballo Sector in search of rumored Separatist-aligned rogue terror cells using the remote sector as their base to run and hide to after attacking hyperlanes. He had found them alright, and had spent the last month chasing down and dismantling the cells, the tactics surprisingly advanced and the terrorists finding various ways to evade him for far longer than he would have liked. They were especially efficient at plotting ambushes that took out large numbers of Obi Wan’s troops.

They had _just_ won a brutal space battle against what seemed to be the majority of the cell fleets, ready to go home once repairs to the _Negotiator_ were completed. Hovering above Dantooine, Obi Wan had rather foolishly jumped at the chance to ensure there was no resurgence, a distress signal picked up by intelligence that hinted at a singular spearhead for the entire terror operation that was coming from the surface of Dantooine.

It was just simple recon, he had told a wary Cody, leaving his commander in charge of the ship and taking a squadron down to the surface in the cover of night where an old network of abandoned tunnels had been spotted on the radar. Just a look to see if anyone was there, he had promised, and then he would come straight back, and decide what further steps to take depending on what he found.

They had hardly been on the planet for half an hour when the electro-pulse went off, sending a violent shock to Obi Wan’s system and knocking him straight out.

He had woken up in Force-resistant chains in a dark metal room. The smell of recycled air and the sense of floating in the Force had told him he was on a ship and not a planet, but beyond that he could not tell where he was. He could be anywhere in the galaxy right now.

He did not know who his captors were, exactly, but he strongly suspected the terrorists he had been chasing. They had only shown up once, on the first day, shadowy figures in dark clothing and cloth face wraps that only showed their eyes. They spoke Outer Rim basic when they spoke to him at all, which wasn’t much besides to tell him to shut up when he tried speaking to them.

They didn’t seem very interested in going near him, instead staying far on the other side of the room and hiding behind a modified tactical droid they had instructed to hit him if he moved. The droid appeared to be faulty, as it seemed to take the movements of his chest or cringes from previous blows as a command to hit him again.

While quite painful, Obi Wan wouldn’t even consider this one of the harsher beatings he had taken— and oh, it probably was not healthy that he had a readily ranked list of instances sitting easily accessible in his memory —and as the group had left, he had only been able to detect a few cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder a few loose teeth, what was likely a concussion, and bruises all over his body. Really, not that bad at all, all things considering.

He could sense from his captors that they were afraid of him, and did not particularly want him aboard whatever ship he was on, so his concussed conclusion was that they were either hired for this, or had decided to capture him on the correct assumption that _someone_ would pay for him.

All in all, there were far worse situations he could be in and while on guard, he was not immediately concerned for his life— though he did stay up at night fearing for his men he had left behind. He hoped to all hopes that the ones with him on Dantooine had made it back. Either way, Cody would know he was missing immediately, though the fact that the bloody comms were all down might pose a slight hiccup in calling for any sort of help.

Currently, he had spent the last however many days he had been here— his internal clock told him likely no more than a week —thinking on how to escape. Twice a day, the tactical droid that had beat him and was now guarding his cell slid a small biodegradable cup of water through the door bars, the second cup always coming with an unwrapped ration bar. It wasn’t much, but it kept him from starving or dehydrating.

Yesterday, however, had not been terribly pleasant. Obi Wan had been fooling around with the locks on his manacled wrists, only to discover that apparently with enough fiddling, the cuffs did _not_ break, oh no. Instead, the wearer was painfully electrocuted.

Quite fun, absolutely would not recommend after being shocked only a few days prior.

He had aggravated his rib injury and his concussed brain, and despite every medical rule telling him not to, had passed out into sleep on the hard floor afterwards.

Now, he had woken up because he swore he had heard noises, and was currently jumping in alarm at the immediate sensation of another living creature in the dark cell with him.

 _No, wait…_ As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Obi Wan was able to make out a faint grey glow from the creature— was there one or two, he was concussed —creature(s) and the sparkling of small eyes.

Obi Wan squinted, putting up a hand to stop the creatures’ approach and hoping he wasn’t about to get himself bit.

Instead, there was a soft, feather-y head nuzzling into his palm, while the other creature slipped under his arm and tucked into his side.

Confusedly, Obi Wan stroked the feathers, and the head under his hand vibrated with a soft, distinctive, “Honk.”

Obi Wan stilled.

He knew that sound.

He _knew_ that sound.

As a young child in the creche, he and his agemates had been unfortunate witnesses to a Force Goose incident still talked about in the Temple. One day, the crechemaster had led him and the other younglings down to the Halls of Healing to visit and hopefully cheer up some of the injured. They had been just getting ready to leave, when a young knight floating in a bacta tank summoned their Force Goose.

Obviously, the knight’s goose could not get to them as they were in bacta and needed to stay there to heal. What did a Force Goose do when it was separated from its charge?

Attack everyone in the immediate vicinity, of course.

Obi Wan could remember the screams of the other children, shouts of the grownups, feathers flying everywhere, and the sight of an enraged monster bird bigger than he was bearing down on him, coal black eyes bulging with hatred, beak opened to expose rows of sharp teeth, great wings buffeting him with bursts of wind while it unleashed an earsplitting shriek of the damned. Young Obi Wan had frozen up like a prey animal in a spotlight, the bird’s fanged beak snapping inches from his nose before a healer had tackled the thing away from him and someone else was scooping him up and carrying him away from the chaos.

He had had nightmares of demonic hissing and toothed tongues waking him up for the next couple of months, and had been much less impressed upon learning just what exactly Force Geese were.

What his first encounter with one as well as countless more had told him, what all research on them had told him, what society itself had told him, was that Force Geese were vicious undying bastard birds with a job to do and a grudge to hold, and beware to anyone who got in their way.

They did not, he had thought, rumble against his uninjured side in what could have been a cooing purr, or angle their heads into his hand for better scritches.

Obi Wan blinked. Perhaps these geese were defective. Or maybe it was the Force’s way of apologizing for the childhood goose trauma. Whatever it was, his geese were not in the least bit angry or hostile, rather choosing to snuggle in closer to him, the one leaning out to peck cautiously at the chains connected to his manacles.

“Don’t—“ Obi Wan started to tell his goose, only to stop because that was _his_ goose.

His Force Goose.

He had given up on humoring the idea of a Force Goose for himself well over a decade ago.

And now he had two.

Two people meant to be his soulmates.

His head throbbed with the reminder of his concussion, and Obi Wan brought his hand to touch it gingerly.

“Why now?” he couldn’t help asking the air, focusing on the _why_ so he didn’t drive himself crazy trying to speculate over the _who_.

There was a muted hiss that could have doubled as a shush, and a feathered, snakelike head, was curling around the back of his neck and guiding him back to the ground. Not having a clue what in the flying fuck was going on right now, Obi Wan settled uneasily on his goosedown pillow made of an actual goose, the softest thing he had felt in days.

He had two soulmates.

_What?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HONK! Yeah, idk either, but geese crack me up. Obi Wan's childhood goose trauma is very much based off my own childhood goose trauma.
> 
> This is a oneshot that I had to divide because it got too big (again). Part 2 should be up sometime this week.
> 
> Drop me a comment and tell me what you think! Or, come say hi to me on Tumblr [@twilightofthe](https://twilightofthe.tumblr.com/) !!!!


	2. Sticking Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer wait, there was a combination of mental issues and also my house's wifi deciding to be faulty as shite, so without access to google docs steadily, I was forced to type out this entire monster on a fucking iPhone. I likely got carpal tunnel for y'all so I hope this is worth it!
> 
> Also thank you to my lovely commenters for coming up with the delightful phrase "goosassination" which will now be a tag on this fic forever and ever amen.

Obi Wan had always assumed he was not meant to have a soulmate.

In his later teenage years and early twenties, when Force Geese started manifesting to terrorize other Jedi his age, he had waited cautiously. Master Qui Gon had told him he had received his Force Goose by eighteen, but that was all Obi Wan had ever been able to get out of his Master on the subject in his entire apprenticeship besides the implication that something had gone wrong. So Obi Wan never pushed, and he sat, and he waited.

No goose ever came.

He had only been disappointed by this once, when he had fallen hopelessly and completely in love with Satine Kryze during his time as her bodyguard, who had never received a goose of her own either.

The pair of them had danced around the topic, both hoping against all hope that the Force would intervene and validate what would otherwise have to end as a bittersweet possibility. They had counted down the days, hanging onto hope that _what if? Maybe…_ Until the final day arrived, and he was forced to leave her.

No goose ever came.

Afterwards, he had been understandably put off towards the idea of another soulmate, and by the time he had come to acceptance with his heart, soulmates in general had just never held appeal.

Then, he was getting older, and now Anakin was in his life and there really was no time for soulmates, not with Anakin taking up his every priority. He had mostly let the idea go by then, not terribly disappointed. He had his Knighthood, he had the other Jedi. He had Anakin. He could do what he loved, helping people.

No need for anyone to come popping up out of nowhere and derail both of their lives.

No need to have another person to worry over; not when he was already stressing enough to keep Anakin from being the next link on the chain of people who tended to die horribly after getting remotely close to him. As far as he knew, Satine still hadn’t received a goose before she died.

Anakin didn’t seem particularly eager for a goose either, had hardly asked questions about them while younger besides the standard did Obi Wan ever have one and so on. Obi Wan figured this was for the best; he knew his friend was head over heels for Padmé Amidala, and if either of them received Force Geese now that weren’t each other, he couldn’t even imagine the drama that would go down.

For their sakes, he hoped geese never came to them. Anakin and Padmé were happy, truly happy, and in this time of war, who was he to try and interfere with what kept light in Anakin’s eyes?

He didn’t know how this war was going to end for anyone, least of all himself, but he was determined that they at least two kind, brilliant people would finish it alive and safe and free to spend their lives together. He could do that much for friends.

Obi Wan’s goose that had established itself as his pillow rumbled beneath his head, and he wrinkled his nose. The birds truly did smell.

_Then again, so do I, likely, having been cooped up here for so long…_

The other goose draped across his back perked its head up with a muted “Honk?”, Obi Wan craning his neck to see the shining black eyes staring in the direction of his cell door.

“Haunk,” replied the pillow goose, sticking its neck out as well, vibrating with increasing intensity.

Obi Wan blinked, the likely concussion causing him to take a second longer to figure out what had agitated them, before the clanking noises of the security droid were heard outside the door.

The geese let out growls in unison, and Obi Wan tensed, having a very uncertain feeling about all of this. He was _fine_ , but he would still rather avoid getting hit by the droid again for unsanctioned visitors if entirely possible.

“That should be my meal of the day,” he faux-joked, running a hand over the bristling one above him’s feathers in an effort to soothe it. “I warn you, it’s only one ration bar, so I hope you don’t require fo— oof!”

He winced as the one goose kicked off his injured chest and went shooting across the room, ramming into the metal door with an almighty, shuddering _clang!_

“HONKHONKHONKHONKHONKHONKHONK!”

Obi Wan jumped at the noise, the other goose taking his movement to gently slip out from under his head and tear off to join its twin.

“HRROOOOOOOONK!”

Bringing his cuffed hands up to try and plug his ears, Obi Wan grit his teeth as the clamor reverberated through his aching head, preparing to face the droid guard that would undoubtedly coming in through the door now to check the commotion.

Sure enough, there was a clicking of the cell door lock, and the geese jumped backwards with dual hisses, wings raised threateningly to face the massive droid shadowing the doorway. “Two unidentified life forms detected,” the droid said passionlessly, lifting a fist.

“Hold on—” said Obi Wan, trying in vain to think.

“GRAK!” chorused the geese angrily, moving at lightspeed right for the droid’s neck.

Together, the geese made it quick.

Obi Wan sat back, watching helplessly with the sensation of his mouth hanging further and further open while ducking the occasional flying piece of machinery. Every once in a while, he even found himself wincing in sympathy, despite the droid having beat him previously. At the end, his geese came waddling back to him, one holding the still sparking head of the droid in its mouth.

“Honk!” chirped the goose with its mouth empty, giving Obi Wan’s boot a nibble. The other rumbled and plopped the droid’s head in his lap.

Obi Wan couldn’t help but sigh, feeling the ache of a smile spreading across his bruised face for the first time since he had been captured. “That was… you know, I feel the pair of you would get along terribly well with my friend Anakin.”

“EEYONK!” The geese began flapping their wings frantically at this, hopping from webbed foot to webbed foot.

Obi Wan blinked. “Is that a ‘yes, you would like to meet my friend’, or an ‘if I introduced you, you would likely go for his face’?”

The geese squawked, bobbing their heads up and down.

“I see,” Obi Wan lied, fiddling with the droid head in his lap and wondering whether he should be concerned for Anakin’s future safety. 

How was Anakin going to react to his pair of Force Geese? _He’d probably insist on hunting my soulmate down himself, if only because he makes it his business to know all of my business,_ he realized with an affectionate snort, finger fiddling with a loose wire. 

That wire sparked (ha!) an idea, Obi Wan’s body screaming and his head rushing slightly as he dragged himself to his feet. He smiled as when he wobbled, his hand shot out to catch a round, feathered head supporting him from the side. “Thank you, friend. I suppose it’s not too much to ask if you left the severed arms mostly functional?”

Together, Obi Wan and the geese shuffled around the room that wasn’t so dark with the door letting light from the hallway in, Obi Wan begrudgingly thankful to his captors for having the decency to make his chain stretch to the doorway for him to retrieve the food. Eventually, he found one arm flung into the far corner, wincing again as he bent to pick it up.

“Now,” he murmured, poking around in the arm mechanisms looking for the key that should extend to unlock his cuffs. “Let’s see about getting out of here before this unfortunate fellow’s friends decide to come looking for him…”

Padmé allowed her two terror birds to drag her up the steps of the Republic ship yards, for once in perfect agreement with them over where exactly she needed to be.

Almost directly after her and Anakin’s brief confirmations that they both possessed two geese, her comm beeped in with a message from Mon that she was going to have to take. They had confirmed that Anakin was coming back to Coruscant and agreed to catch up in person as soon as they could, to vanish the geese and to celebrate, though Anakin had made a face at this and told her he would explain when he got back.

Padmé had the rest of the next day to deal with the honking menaces creating a mess of her apartments, tearing holes in two more of her outfits, trying to actually bodily drag her out the door at one point, and generally making sure she got little to no work done for the rest of the day, yodeling angrily at her and making it crystal clear just how much they did not want to be staying trapped inside.

Having had to reschedule a holocall with the Queen of Naboo and still not receiving a response from Palpatine about the apology for the goossassination attempt, Padmé had settled for takeout delivery from an unhealthy Space Pizza place she hadn’t eaten the likes of in years, and went for the world’s quickest shower as the geese made their best efforts to beat down her fresher door after she had closed the thing on one’s head at least five times trying to kick them out of the fresher in the first place.

As she lay in bed that night, rather bruised, one eye on the geese taking turns honking at her from the foot of the bed and occasionally biting at her foot, Padmé had used this time that would not be spent sleeping to study her geese. Plural. _Two._

They looked identical, as all Force Geese were, and to Padmé’s observations as of yet acted identically in their righteous Force-blessed rage. Still, she tried to pin at least one of their characteristics on Anakin, thinking that if she knew which goose was meant for him, she could try and study the other and figure out the unknown identity of Soulmate Number Two.

As much as Rage-Filled Shameless Public Assassination Attempt did seem her husband’s style, Palpatine was Anakin’s good friend, so she wasn’t sure if Separatist Goose was his his or not. 

Oh, she hoped their third wasn’t a Separatist. 

She was sure they could work something out, but it would certainly make things difficult.

Her eyes had just started to drift shut as she imagined the kind of person that would perfectly balance out both Anakin and herself, only to shoot awake once more at a vindictive “HONK!”

Now, one of her geese let out a low growling noise and tried to charge one of the Coruscant guards stationed out front, who, Padmé was amused to notice, took a hasty step back and clutched his weapon.

“No!” Padmé hissed back at it, wrenching the leash and the goose backwards.

“HYANK!” snapped the other goose, biting at her pantleg.

“Um,” said the guard trooper. “This is a restricted area, Ma’am. Can I help you?”

Padmé pulled her hood off to reveal her face. “I’m a member of the Republic Senate, I have clearance,” she smiled at the clone, fumbling with her Geese Leash to snag her ID from her belt and hand it over. “My soulmate will be arriving on one of the incoming military ships within the hour.”

Gods, calling Anakin her _soulmate_ made her feel lightheaded with happiness, she hoped this was just a side effect that would fade after knowing for more than 24 hours, or she might be in danger of passing out.

“Ah, Senator Amidala, my apologies,” the clone replied, scanning her ID and handing it back to her. “And my congratul— agh!”

One of Padmé’s geese had jumped up and snapped at the clone’s fingers as he finished returning the ID, latching on while the guy yelled until Padmé leaned over and wrenched its head away. “I am so sorry about that!”

“No worries, ma’am, I’ve had run-ins with these fuc— uh, suckers before, this isn’t anything. Say, is this the one that tried to off the Chancellor?” Padmé felt her cheeks heat while the poor trooper instantly started spluttering out horrified apologies. “Oh gods, no, I didn’t mean to— I meant— no, it’s just that—“ The trooper sighed, helmet drooping down. “We watch the news. I’m sorry to bring it up, Senator, of course I know it was an accident. My sincerest apologies for speaking out of line.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Padmé promised. “It was sensational and likely half the galaxy is aware by now, of course you knew.” She peered down at where the geese had taken a moment from attacking her or the guard to groom one another. “I actually can’t remember which one attacked him. They’re identical.”

The trooper let out a laugh drenched in relief. “That’s a shame. Well, for the Republic’s sake, let’s hope your soulmate coming in today belongs to the treasonous bird so us guards have one less threat to the Chancellor to worry about, yeah? Unless they’re _both_ coming in?”

Padmé chuckled back even as her geese let out twin honk-hisses. “Just one of them, to my knowledge. Both the geese have been quite eager to leave though, I think either one would make things far easier.”

“Can’t say I disagree with you , ma’am,” the trooper replied, saluting and stepping to the side. “Do you need someone to walk you to where the _Resolute_ usually docks?”

Padmé shook her head, digging in her heels as her arms strained to keep the geese from immediately bolting through the entrance. “No, I’ve been here before, but thank you.”

The clone nodded at her and Padmé finally let herself be dragged off into a powerwalk as her geese went on the hunt. It only vaguely occurred to her that she couldn’t recall telling the guard that her soulmate was on the _Resolute_ specifically, but she brushed it off as it likely being the only ship scheduled to land around this time.

As she made her way through the shipyards, her geese grew increasingly louder and more frantic in their honk chorus, but decreasingly violent, flapping their wings and bellowing at anyone else who walked too close, but as long as Padmé let them steer, so to speak, they were content with almost pulling her arms out of their sockets.

She drew more stares and whispers, but military personnel were trained to be less open in their gossip than the Senate crowd, so she received no further harassment, although she did catch several variations of “attack on the Chancellor”.

Looked like she wouldn’t be living that one down for likely the rest of her time in office.

Reaching the area where the Star Destroyer was to dock, Padmé found a cluster of storage crates and, goose peck to the knee from this morning still particularly achy, turned to her geese and negotiated the rights to sit and relax on the crates while they perched on the top and roared hatred down on anyone who walked too close past them. 

Padmé had timed this perfectly, as she was only waiting about fifteen minutes or so before the bustle of the ground crew began to increase and she could see the Star Destroyer melting out of the clouds and making its way to the unloading platform.

The geese began to howl, feathers flying everywhere, causing the crates to rattle and drawing almost everyone’s attention. Frantically shushing them, Padmé drew them towards her, wincing as she caught a wing upside the head and claws dug into her thigh. “Hey, hey, hey, let’s wait for him to land and get off first!”

Somehow, the geese listened to her, settling in her lap and vibrating intensely as they watched the looming shadow reach the platform and the first members of the 501st start to disembark in routine lines.

Or, the lines were routine, until a loud, shrieking ruckus could be heard echoing out of the ship. Troopers paused in their steps to turn around and look over their shoulders, only for their entire line to topple like dominoes as an explosion of black blur and grey feathers shot out of the ship, landing on the platform ground in a tangle of limbs and demonic honks and beaks and pained cries. 

To Padmé’s horror, one of her geese’s heads shot up, gave a firm “Honk,” of awareness, and then her pair of winged menaces were flying across the platform at lightspeed for the ball of feathers and limbs that shouted over the din, “Dammit, Ahsoka, I thought you were supposed to be holding one— _ow!_ ”

“I _was_ holding it!” As Padmé began to sprint over to rescue her husband, she could see Ahsoka Tano vaulting out of the ship, one arm clutched to her side. “Until the stupid thing bit my hand again!” With Captain Rex on her heels, Ahsoka dove into the fray at the same time Padmé’s geese arrived, creating a larger pile of flailing bodies as Ahsoka and Rex tried to pry the geese off Anakin’s prone form.

“Hang the kark on, did these things just _multiply?_ ” Rex was snapping, elbowing a snapping goose beak away from him with a grunt as Padmé skidded up to them.

“Hey!” she said, but was drowned out by an angry bugle of one of the geese and thoroughly ignored.

“Multiply, wha—?” Anakin was saying under the through a goose foot on his face. “No, no, there’s one, t-wait, _three—_ Padmé?!”

At Anakin craned his head upwards, looking at her with a thunderstruck gape, Ahsoka, Rex, and all four of the geese froze.

“Honk!” said the goose currently in half a headlock curtesy of Ahsoka, unruffling its feathers and sitting down.

“Oof,” went Anakin as the two geese that were on top of him went limp.

Padmé took a breath, noting that even in this state of feathered dishevelment, Anakin still took her breath away. “Hey there, soulmate,” she said with a smile threatening to split her face. “Need some help there?”

Anakin gave her a dazed smile back. “Heh. Hi, soulmate.” A goose honked in his face before it and the other stepped off him and let Padmé pull Anakin to his feet. 

_My soulmate…_

“Oh!” Remembering something important, Padmé reached into her belt and pulled out a small recording device, turning it on. She handed it to Rex, who took it with the hand that didn’t have a goose attached to its arm. “Could you?” she asked, gesturing to her and Anakin.

Rex nodded, pointing the recorder at them while Anakin said, “Huh?” right as Padmé reached up and pulled him down by the back of the neck into a soft kiss.

For a moment, it was just the two of them, and then there was a loud “SQUONK!” followed by a _poof!_ that made them both startle apart.

The goose on Rex’s arm and one of the ones sitting on Anakin had disappeared.

“Honk!” said the goose Ahsoka held, nodding its head as if in agreement.

The entire shipyard was staring at them.

Arms still slung around her husband, Padmé could feel his frame shake with laughter. “Well then,” Anakin remarked. “Guess that’s one.”

Padmé snorted. “I guess so.” She promptly pulled Anakin into another, more thorough kiss, and didn’t break it when noise broke out this time, a massive round of applause and cheers and calls of congratulations. She could feel Anakin smiling against her mouth, only jerking away to glare at the crowd when someone let out a wolf-whistle followed by, “Get it, Senator!”

Padmé was giggling, feeling her own cheeks burning slightly as she turned to Rex who handed her recorder back to her with a grin of his own. “Filmed the whole thing. Congratulations, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” she replied, handling the recorder back into her belt pocket and securing the cover so she could transport it back to the temple.

The Jedi had one more additional rule about soulmates. Given the steps they needed to take to protect Jedi soulmates from the potential liabilities of having a Soul Bond with someone in such a dangerous job at times, the Order required explicit proof that someone was a Jedi’s other half. Anyone in the galaxy could lie their way up the steps of the Temple and declare themselves a jilted soulmate of a knight who had kissed away their Force Geese and left before others could know.

Therefore, each knight either had to bring their soulmate and geese to the temple and initiate the first kiss for the records center, or, if the situation required getting rid of the geese straight away, documenting the kiss. The bottom line was that Order needed some way to see proof that Force Geese had led two or more specific souls together and that the Soul Bond was real.

Anakin looked back at Padmé, face still adorably flushed. 

“I figured we could walk this to the temple records together,” she told him, still smiling. 

Anakin began to nod, before a dark shadow washed over his expression completely, eyes dull and jaw hardening. 

“Ani? What’s wrong?”

“I’m really glad you came to see me,” Anakin rasped. “But you’re going to have to handle the records yourself. I’ve got an urgent mission I need to see the Council about as quickly as possible.”

“U-urgent— okay,” Padmé stammered, trying to push down the pang of hurt. This is what marrying a Jedi meant. Urgent commitments. Even on one of the most important days of both of your lives…

“No, it’s not—“ Anakin took her hand and walked them off, geese honking behind them and plapping along with their goose feet. “It’s Obi Wan,” he said, brow pinched together.

Ah, Padmé realized. Of course.

“He went missing days ago, we think someone took him,” Anakin told her. “I’m being sent to look for him. I love you, Angel, and I’m so sorry, but I need to go as fast as I can. He—“

He broke off, not even flinching when one of the geese squonked and chomped on the back of his tabards, sitting down so Anakin had to drag it along.

“It’s okay,” Padmé told him, running a soothing hand down his arm. Obi Wan was different. The Jedi Master had become a good friend of her own, playing the role of the stable, constant presence throughout her time with Anakin as they dragged each other into trouble of many names.

Of course she couldn’t get upset if Anakin was worried about Obi Wan, now _she_ was beginning to worry about Obi Wan. He and Anakin were so close, if Padmé had ever dared put a name on the possibility of someone besides herself being Anakin’s soulmate…

She almost stumbled over her goose’s long neck sticking out in front of her feet, thoughts scrambling and reassembling themselves in a picture that nearly caused her to trip again out of shock.

_We still have another goose. Another soulmate._

_Oh my gods._

_What if?_

The geese had _not_ enjoyed the speeder ride to the temple, Padmé and Anakin electing to sit together and restrain the birds in a bruising group hug that no one enjoyed while Ahsoka drove rather pale-knuckled, using all the tricks Anakin had taught her to break several traffic laws without getting caught.

As much of a massive weight off his chest it was to know that his beloved wife was his soulmate and that he no longer had to hide her anymore— though apparently he hadn’t been doing a very good job of it anyway, if his men’s complete lack of surprise combined with Rex’s firm denial of saying anything to anyone and Ahsoka’s “no, Skyguy, Rex didn’t tell anyone, you’re just bad at this” —Anakin’s mind couldn’t help but dwell on how long it had taken to pack up and leave Agamar, how long it took to get here, however long the Council would make him sit while they talked to him before he finally would be allowed to go find Obi Wan. Obi Wan, who had been missing now for almost a week.

Exhaling deeply, Anakin dodged another beak going for his nose and a honk to the face. Slender fingers wrapped around his own through the goose hug, and Anakin met Padmé’s warm brown eyes.

“You’re going to find him,” she told him. “It will be fine. You will find him, and he will be alright, and you will bring him home. I believe this.”

Anakin squeezed her hand. “Thanks, Pads.”

One goose snapped at his ear again.

Upon their arrival at the temple, the guards watching them did some double takes at the sight of Anakin’s and Padmé’s geese straining at their Geese Leashes as Anakin walked Padmé to the point where they’d have to split up, him for the Council chamber, and her to the temple archives where she would present them with the video of their kiss and register herself and Anakin as soulmates.

It felt strange, being able to walk through the Jedi temple openly holding his wife’s hand after years of secrecy, like he had forgotten to put clothes on when he woke up and was now walking naked.

It didn’t feel… _bad,_ though, he thought as he saw Padmé yanking her goose away from where it took a lunge at a gaggle of passing younglings and give them a gracious, apologetic smile.

But still. Even with Padmé glowing radiantly in the light streaming through the windows, he couldn’t enjoy it without the dark pit in his gut churning uneasily. He felt guilty. Here should be one of the happiest days of his life, and he couldn’t even enjoy it with his Master in trouble. He was making doe eyes at his soulmate while Obi Wan could be—

“This is where we split, right?” Padmé asked him, stopping them at where they indeed needed to part ways. When Anakin just gave her a mute nod, she sighed and wrapped him into a brief, tight embrace. “I’ll wait for you when I’m done registering,” she murmured in his ear. “I know you’ll likely be headed straight back out to search for him, but I can walk you to where you need to go, yeah?” Padmé’s goose started tugging at the bottom of her tunic, and she absently batted its head away, her face not losing its concerned look.

“Yeah,” Anakin managed, trying to offer a weak smile that turned into a grimace when his goose bellowed loudly and latched onto his metal hand again. “See you then.”

Anakin felt ready to vibrate right out of his skin as he took the lift up to the Council chamber, his goose not helping at all as it tried to eat the buttons and nailing him firmly in the shin when he tried to stop it.

Eventually wrestling it into a semblance of submission through gratuitous Geese Leash tying and hoisting it under his arm, Anakin walked right into the Council chamber and bowed to the Masters like he wasn’t holding a quietly hissing demon.

It seemed news of his and Padmé’s display at the docks hadn’t yet reached Council ears just yet, as he could see raised eyebrows and sense sparks of surprise in the Force at his unexpected company.

“Good afternoon, Masters.”

“Knight Skywalker,” Yoda rumbled, ears twitching. “Your pardon, I beg, but swore I did that during our holocall, two Force Geese you had?”

Anakin nodded, ready to get the necessary explanation over with so he could go look for Obi Wan. “Yes, Master Yoda. There were two, but when I landed today, I ran into one of my soulmates, Senator Padmé Amidala. Her geese had led her right to me, and as two geese can be a, ah, challenge—“ At this, his goose gave an indignant squawk. “—we decided to drop the number down to one as quickly as possible. We recorded the— erm, the kiss, and she’s down in the archives now getting us registered.”

“The Force has blessed your souls, may your bond prosper.” Ti spoke the traditional words, the other Council members adding in their own murmurs of subdued congratulations. None of them seemed overly shocked at this news, however, and Anakin chose to see this as them simply having good sabacc faces.

Force, but it felt good to say that to them, that he was destined to be with Padmé Amidala and there was nothing these old farts could do to stop it.

Anakin’s goose bit him in the arm, the pain refocusing him.

No. Gloat later. 

Obi Wan needed help now.

“Thank you, Masters,” he said. “Now, ah, about Obi Wan? You said I was being called back to help look for him?”

There were shared glances exchanged that Anakin did not like at all. “Yes,” Mundi began. “As of now, we’ve still received no contact with Master Kenobi, or any indication to where exactly he is…”

“But,” Windu added, “Republic intelligence has picked up reports on the black market, someone posting vague advertisements about an ‘auction’ coming up involving a high-ranking Republic captive with ‘valuable information’.”

“That has to be him,” Anakin declared, ready to run. 

“Maybe so,” Windu said annoyingly. “The rumor trail has been tracked back to an event of some sorts happening in the Rakhasa system, on the planet Khasa Major.”

“HyONK!” Anakin’s goose butt in.

“Shush,” Windu told the goose. 

Anakin had to stifle a snort as his goose, not impressed, strained in his arms and let out two short honks in Windu’s direction that sounded distinctly like _Fuck off._

Something coming to mind, Anakin blinked, bringing up his mental map of the galaxy. “Wait. The Rakhasa system is in the Corusca Sector, it’s practically right next door.”

“Which is why uncertain we are that there Kenobi is,” Yoda said.

“Master Kenobi was last seen above Dantooine,” Billaba pointed out. “I don’t doubt that he could have been moved halfway across the galaxy in almost a week, but it seems rather unwise to publicly hold a Jedi in a location that close to the Order. If whoever we’re dealing with possessed the skill to capture someone of Obi Wan’s capabilities, it makes sense to assume they would know this?”

“Anything is possible,” Windu retorted, still, Anakin noticed in delight, locked in a staring match with the goose. “It’s the most likely lead we have at the moment.”

“We want you to go to Khasa Major immediately,” Mundi told him. “See if there’s anyone there, and if you find Obi Wan, extract him before all kinds of unwanted attention is attracted for this auction. Your personal experience with the Ohnaka pirate crew means we don’t need to tell you just how sideways hostage situations can go.”

Anakin winced at the reminder of his and Obi Wan’s terrible adventure with Dooku and Hondo, his goose making a whuffled honking that sounded like laughter. “No, I understand.”

“However,” Windu added, breaking contact with the goose to stare judgmentally at Anakin instead. “This is supposed to be a stealth operation. While it is better that you only have the one now, we have some doubts that this assignment would be best suited for a—“

“HONK!”

“A goose,” Yoda finished. “And leave it behind, you cannot.”

“What? No!” Anakin protested, ignoring the angry looks of warning he received in response. “No, listen. You all know the rules about the geese. They bother you, but if they understand that you’re in a situation where you _can’t_ go looking for your soulmate this very second, they wait it out! I’ll be able to do it just fine!” Anakin shook his goose at them with an indignant honk. “It’ll behave.” Dodging another snap of the toothed beak, he added, “This one might even give me some backup if there’s a fight.”

“And what of your other soulmate who the goose belongs to?” Ti asked, cocking her head as she examined the furious bundle of feathers. “They are likely being just as… _encouraged…_ by their goose as you are to find you. Would you want to risk a civilian getting led unknowingly into this situation?”

Anakin stifled a growl. His goose did not. “As far as I’m aware, the geese like to lead you down the easiest possible path to find your soulmate. Pad— erm, Senator Amidala will be staying right here on Coruscant. I’m sure our third’s geese will much prefer to lead them towards her as opposed to into a hostage situation with me.” He was still seeing uncertain looks everywhere he turned, so he added, ashamed at the desperate note sounding in his voice. “I can do this, Masters. Let me bring him home safe, please.”

“Believe I do that do it, you can,” Yoda spoke up finally, and Anakin almost let his goose go in relief, ignoring the uncertain grumbling noises from the other Masters. “Head for Khasa Major straight away, you will?”

“As soon as we’re done here, Master,” Anakin promised. 

Mace cleared his throat. “Well, then. Don’t let us keep you. All relevant mission information will be forwarded to your datapad. We’re trusting you with this, Skywalker.”

“Understood,” Anakin said, dipping his head in a quick bow. “Masters.”

He stuffed his metal hand back into his goose’s snapping maw and turned to walk away, only for the voice of Plo Koon to sound behind him. “Oh, and do give Senator Amidala our congratulations. We hope you two will no longer feel the need to sneak around everyone else anymore.”

Anakin dropped his goose, who landed with a dismayed squawk and instantly sunk its teeth into his calf. Ignoring the pain, he whirled around. _”What?”_ he squawked.

He was met with eleven innocent, oblivious stares. 

“Say something, did we?” Yoda asked, tilting his head, ears twitching.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Fisto offered.

Mace Windu honest-to-stars _snorted_ , covering his mouth elegantly and raising a brow at Anakin. “Well. Shouldn’t you be off?”

“I— you—“ Anakin sputtered, feeling half ready to explode and send everyone in this damn room out the windows with him. _How many people fucking knew about— did EVERYONE— did_ Obi Wan _know?!_

Anakin’s goose tugged his pantleg towards the door with a muffled honk.

“Right,” Anakin decided with a nod, not going to touch any of this with a ten-foot pole.

He just wasn’t.

Not dealing with this, no sir.

He spun around and limped off for the lift with the goose snapping at his heels teasingly. Before the Council doors shut, he swore he could hear Mundi’s voice. “That wasn’t very nice, Plo.”

“Funny, it was,” Yoda’s voice sounded as the doors hissed closed.

Anakin’s jaw clenched. _Nope._

He met Padmé in the hallway on the way out, her hauling the goose on its leash as it slid across the floor, growling and apparently deciding it did not want to move.

He swooped down and gave her a brief peck on the lips. “They have a suspicion where he is. We’re short on time. I’m gonna leave now to go and find him, and this guy,” Anakin prodded at his goose with his foot, receiving a pissy bugle in reply. “Is going to come with me and _behave_.” Anakin stared the goose right in the eye, daring it to argue.

_Don’t try me. Soulmates can wait until after I’ve found him._

Something flashed across Padmé’s expression that Anakin could not name. “Okay,” she told him, stroking his cheek. “You go, find him. I’ll look for our third soulmate.”

“Actually, I was hoping you’d stay here,” Anakin told her. At Padmé’s raised brow, he added, “If our third soulmate is looking for us too, their geese should be leading them to the easiest target. I don’t want their geese to follow me and drag them into whatever mess Obi Wan’s gotten stuck in. If you stayed here as easy goosebait—“

_”Goosebait?”_

“You know what I mean! Anyway, if you stayed on planet and just waited, our soulmate would probably come to you.” 

Padmé’s eyes narrowed and her goose at her feet honked accusingly at Anakin. 

“ _Please,_ Pads,” Anakin begged. “I’m already worried about what could have happened to him since I can’t feel him through the bond, I don’t want to be worrying about anyone else or multiple people could get hurt, I—“

“Alright, Ani,” Padmé soothed, raising her hands. “I’ll make sure our soulmate can find me. Just focus on Obi Wan, okay?”

Anakin wilted in relief. “Thank you. I love you.”

Padmé gave him another brief kiss. “I love you too. Now go! We’ll be fine.” She tried to pat her goose’s head, only to yelp as it nipped at her fingers. “We’ll be fine,” she repeated, smiling with a wince.

Anakin shot her a grateful grin, kicking his goose free of where it was gnawing at his boot. “Hey! Race you to the ships!” He took off down the hallway, his goose giving a honk-roar and charging after him.

Padmé noticed with amusement that Anakin began to run faster, the pair causing other Jedi break their serene composure and dive out of the way as they went.

“Okay, okay, okay!” Padmé was saying as her goose towed her across the platform that led to her personal ship. Typho was watching in concern from a safe distance— or trying to, with his remaining eye swollen from an unlucky hit of the feathered kind.

“Are you sure about this, milady?” Typho called to her.

“HRANK!” snapped the goose, flapping its wings at him. Typho flinched.

“Positive!” Padmé called back, a massive yank from her goose causing her to stumble forward and land hard on her knee. “I’m okay!” she promised as the goose began dragging her up the ramp, eventually giving up and releasing the goose honking into the ship in favor of getting back to her feet and shooting Typho one last promising wave before hurrying up the ship’s ramp. The sounds of honking led her to the cockpit, where she dreaded finding the goose shredding the dashboard or disabling the navigational controls.

Her heart dropped when, sure enough, there was the goose perched in the pilot’s seat and pecking at what looked like the navicomputer, but her motivation for bringing the goose on the ship in the first place to test her hypothesis settled some of her panic.

“Hey,” she said cautiously, approaching the goose at the dashboard with her hands raised like it were a grenade about to go off.

“HONK!” said the goose, dancing in place on the seat.

“Did you do something to the navicomputer?” she asked, very, very slowly moving her hand towards the computer to check. 

“ESSS.”

“Ow!”

The goose had latched onto her hand again and yanked it— over to the computer? Padmé paused in trying to remove her hand from the toothed grip to see the coordinates that had plugged in.

_I was right…_

“Is that where my soulmate is? Mine and Anakin’s?” she asked it.

The goose spat out her now goosespit-covered hand to “HONK! HONK!” at her, bobbling its head in a figure-eight so Padmé couldn’t tell whether that was supposed to be a yes or a no. She had heard these geese were intelligent, so if there was the slightest chance…

_Stay on Coruscant and wait…_ She snorted. Sometimes Anakin simply didn’t think.

The little voice in the back of her head reminded her that she might be seeing Anakin again when she got to wherever the goose had steered the ship, if her hunch was correct.

Padmé tried to squish it; just because she had been lucky enough to find her first soulmate beforehand in no way meant… stars, it was literally a one in a trillion or more chance…

_But he could be…_

Padmé shook her head, making shooing motions at the goose in her seat. “Scoot. I need to pilot.”

The goose looked her dead in the eye and pissed on the seat.

Padmé sighed. “Alright. I guess I’m flying standing up.” Maneuvering in front of the seat, she grabbed the steering yoke and began to guide the ship off the platform.

Obi Wan swore quietly at the sight of another pack of masked fighters and ducked behind a corner, hoping the geese would follow his lead.

The geese did not follow his lead.

There were shouts of alarm and twin trumpeting honks as his two murder birds took off down the corridor, the sounds of blaster fire bouncing right off them as they dove into the panicked group.

Obi Wan sighed, stepping out from behind his cover and leveling the blaster he had picked off the first person his geese had attacked. Trying to aim for not lethal but still incapacitating was difficult when he only had one working arm, but between his shots and the geese, the group was quickly down for the count.

Obi Wan hurried over to them, doing what he had done to all the others he had ran into on this massive freighter and giving a quick once-over for what he truly needed: his lightsaber, which must have been taken from him, and/or any kind of key stick that would lead to a ship of some sorts.

Nothing. 

_Blast._

Obi Wan and his feathered companions had been running/limping around this massive barge freighter about the size of a full Star Destroyer or larger for almost half a day now.

This had to be the terror cell’s main base of operations, because the entire ship appeared to have been modified into half a miniature-city, half base. Thousands lived here, and while he had been able to successfully make it to the hangar, he had found no ships to steal, and no way to reach the escape pods.

His geese, who were _supposed_ to be leading him to his _(two!?)_ soulmates, had not seemed particularly interested in leading him anywhere, more focused on taking out their furious rage on any terrorists they stumbled across. 

They had thrown a massive fit when Obi Wan had tried to crawl into the vents to the point of yodeling loudly and latching onto his foot and refusing to let go, but he figured that was more them being upset over being too large or too chaotic to fit.

He truly did hope that the geese’s lack of action except in defense meant their tracking ability was simply defective and not that both soulmates resided on this ship. Obi Wan hadn’t particularly been looking for any particular qualities in a potential soulmate, but he would prefer not to be forced to arrest them as criminals.

If he could even find as much as a damn escape pod, he would be in a much better place, but pods had yet to yield themselves, and with his geese having recently set a fire two decks below and alerted the terrorists to his escape, chances of being caught and locked up again were growing increasingly high.

In his mind, the Force Bond between himself and Anakin glowed faintly again, and he relaxed slightly, running mental fingers over it in comfort. The one good thing that had happened so far was that one he had the Force-nulling cuffs off, Anakin’s side of the Bond had lit up instantly.

His friend knew there was something wrong and was looking for him.

Obi Wan had figured that if he could find the freighter’s bridge, there would be a _chance_ he would be able to overpower whoever was inside and hijack the barge, but outside the doors were five of the security droids standing guard and his geese did not seem eager to repeat their trick they did on the one in his cell, so he had been forced to retreat and play a game of hide-and-seek with what felt like every terrorist on this freighter for the last few hours.

He had already almost been caught twice and it wouldn’t be long now.

Speaking of, there was more commotion coming from down the hall, and with his sides aching, Obi Wan grit his teeth and forced open a maintenance hatch in the wall, taking the opportunity to hip-check the first goose inside it and diving in after, the other following with an unhappy hiss while the first began shredding at the knee of his pant leg seemingly out of spite. Closing the hatch, Obi Wan listened with blaster ready as footsteps and voices sounded outside. The murmuring was urgent, frantic, and while he couldn’t make much out, he swore he heard something about an “unexpected arrival” coming aboard. 

The sound faded away after with the echoing of more footsteps, Obi Wan not hesitating and taking off down the maintenance hallway with the _plip plap_ of goose feet behind him 

Anakin had been on edge since halfway to the Rakhasa system when he had felt the startling sensation of what felt like a plug inside his ear getting removed, allowing him to hear again. His bond with Obi Wan was no longer clouded. They was still too far away to properly communicate, but he was still _there._ He was alive.

Piloting was already difficult enough as it was with him needing to peer over the stinking goose head that had been forced to sit in his lap, as the nondescript three person light fighter he had gone in was tiny in the cockpit, not built for geese, or really any more than one of the three people. The goose did not agree with this assessment, as when he had tried to make the hell bird sit in the back, it had bitten him in the very sensitive part of his side and fought viciously until Anakin conceded to the lap sitting. 

Once inside, however, the goose had not complained as Anakin punched in the estimated coordinates and steered them out. His ploy of keeping Padmé on Coruscant must be working if his goose wasn’t stretching for him to find his other soulmate.

When Anakin had finally come out of orbit over Khasa Major— was it barely an hour’s journey? Maybe so, but it felt like a lifetime —finding a giant barge freighter off in the distance that was partially on fire was not what he had been expecting. The Force was still humming clearly in his head as it had been ever since the Bond had gone live, and when Anakin had made the motion to guide the steering yoke away, his goose had hissed and clamped down on his fingers.

“Ow!” Anakin jerked his hand back and promptly whacked it on the transparisteel canopy above him. “We do not have enough space for you to be doing this.”

“HONK.”

“Yeah, I know, you want to find my soulmate. It can wait, alright? I need to find my Master first.”

The goose made a snorting noise that almost sounded like it was laughing at him and then bobbed its head in the direction of the smoking freighter.

“That’s where I’m headed,” Anakin told it. “Luckily for us right now— but possibly unluckily for once we ge there, it seems there’s already some sort of trouble going on. We’re far enough out of range right now they shouldn’t have noticed us yet; if we go around and come in on the part that’s already busted, they shouldn’t be able to put any eyes on us.”

He didn’t know why he was explaining this to the goose as he steered the ship in a wide arc around and towards the flames on the freighter, it felt an awful lot like talking himself, and that was one of the few traits he hadn’t picked picked up from Obi Wan yet.

Holding his breath, he angled in towards the flaming rear of the freighter, waiting for the anti-spacecraft weaponry to start shooting, or an angry ship to come swarming out to chase him off, but nothing happened.

Exhaling in relief, he flew as close to the flames as he could before banking off and flying along the side of the freighter, examining the model and shuffling through his memory to try and determine where the escape pods would be. He knew how to knock one off with the right electro-charges without damaging the escape hatch, and he figured that this would be the best way to get onboard as quickly and quietly as possible. More and more, he was sensing that this was indeed where Obi Wan was.

_I’m almost there. Hang on._

Finally, he reached the area where he swore he recalled where the escape pods were kept… only to find that there were none in the slots they were supposed to be in. Briefly, he considered the chance Obi Wan had managed to escape and do this, it wasn’t out of his Master’s impressive ability range by far, but something was repeatedly telling him he needed to board the freighter, so he doubted it.

_More likely whoever owns this thing wanted a deal and bought a lower-priced ship that didn’t have its escape pods anymore…_

Still, this just made Anakin’s job easier, so he steered his ship until he was successfully docked with one of the escape hatches. Shifting under the goose to unbuckle himself, Anakin said, “Now I don’t suppose I can convince you to stay her— agh!”

The goose had whipped around and pecked him directly in the forehead. _Hard_. While Anakin’s head spun and he tried to recover, the goose was launching off his chest and through the open hatch leading from the escape pod onto the ship. 

“Wait, no! Don’t, you stupid—“ Shaking off the headache, Anakin scrambled out of his ship and in through the escape hatch, up and running after the sound of loud, honk-howling. He skidded into a long grey corridor, looking around, only to hear more angry goose sounds down the hall to his right and went tearing off in that direction. He got to the end of the hallway, still no goose, but more loud noises around another corner, and this time, footsteps coming up behind him. 

Cursing, Anakin started running again, diving around the corner he had heard the goose from and cursing even more when there was again no goose in sight. The footsteps had grown louder, so Anakin pressed himself to the corner wall, lightsaber in his hand, hackles only lowering when the group of robed masked people ran by him without turning down Anakin’s corner.

A faint, warbling honk sounded down the corridor and Anakin sighed, once more taking off after his Force-chosen curse of a bird. Again, no goose upon turning and looking. This continued on for the next ten minutes.

He hated this. He could be looking for his Master right now, but no, instead he was stuck on this literal wild goose chase trying to avoid the squads of dark-clothed figures so his karking murder bird didn’t get him caught by the sleemos who had already managed to get the drop on a guy like Obi Wan.

He hated everything.

A final honk followed by yells and blaster firehad him putting on a burst of speed and rounding the corner to find his goose running around in circles terrorizing a group of five masked figures who were frantically trying to stamp on the goose, shoot it with blaster bolts that just bounced straight off it, and getting themselves bit and knocked over by massive wings.

One was already on the floor, and Anakin watched the goose jump straight into the face wrap of another who went down with a scream. The others noticed him and began shooting, swearing when Anakin snapped out his lightsaber and began to advance, deflecting them with ease.

“ _Shit!_ There he is!”

“I told you they said he had a goose with him!”

Anakin grimaced, realizing they must have noticed him somehow, batting away another shot and reaching out with one hand and flinging one into the wall. The others increased their blaster fire, only for one to shriek as Anakin’s goose chomped on their blaster arm and jerked their gun to shoot their friend instead.

With the shot one down, the remaining one with the blaster only had a second to try and yank their hand out of the goose’s mouth before Anakin was grabbing them by the neck and slamming them to the ground.

“You’re holding a Jedi here,” Anakin snarled. “Where is he?”

The fighter’s eyes bulged. “I— I don’t—“

Anakin’s fist tightened for a second, the figure sputtering. “Wrong answer. Try again. Where is the Jedi you captured?”

“I’m— I’m no good at riddles!” the fighter begged. “Right in front of me? I don’t know!”

_Right in front of—? Oh._ Anakin rolled his eyes. “Not _me_ , idiot, I’m not the one you captured. I am looking for Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi— and I know you have him. I’ll ask you one more time: where the hells is he?” 

“You— you’re not? But you have a—“ The fighter looked over at Anakin’s goose in confusion only to yelp when the goose let out an unholy shriek in their face. “Shit, alright! I don’t know where he is, he escaped his cell a couple hours ago! We’ve been looking for him ever since—“

Anakin growled, bashing the lackey’s head against the ground and knocking him out. “So he did break himself out,” he said to the goose, who immediately squonked at him and pecked him in the knee.

“Ow!” Anakin shoved the goose’s head away, only for the crackling of the lackey’s radio at their hip caught his attention. 

_”…all units…….come in…….unknown ship approaching……..prepare for potential assailants…….”_

Oh, great. More unknown factors coming in. Just what Anakin needed, how wonderful.

“HAUNK!” yelled his goose, startling him away from the radio. Anakin turned, looked at his goose who met his stare dead on, continued to hold it as it slowly leaned down, then quick as lightning snatched up Anakin’s lightsaber he had left on the floor and began flying down the hallway away from him.

“Oh, _fuck_ no. You little—“ Anakin leaped to his feet and took off in a dead sprint. This could not be happening. The goose did not just—

The signature swishing hiss of a saber igniting sounded down another hallway, followed by a chorus of screams.

“Oh my gods,” Anakin muttered, increasing his pace.

In hindsight, maybe Padmé shouldn’t have decided to blindly let a Force-conjured magical goose drive a ship— or at least not set in hyperspace coordinates, as when they finally dropped out of hyperspace, she had exactly five seconds to look at the giant wall of steel in front of her, scream, and yank the steering yoke to the right to pull their ship away from careening directly into the side of another ship.

“Are you _kidding me?_ ” she shouted at her goose. “You nearly killed— gah, hey!”

The goose had hissed back angrily at her and was now nipping at her fingers on the yoke, trying to grab the thing itself and steer the ship back to where it was.

“No!” Padmé snapped. “You are a goose and you can’t drive!”

“HJONK!” wailed the goose, flinging itself into the transparisteel facing the large freighter they had almost hit and bouncing off it with a thud.

Padmé sighed. “Is that where you want us to go?”

The goose screamed in her face, just as the ship suddenly gave a massive shudder and the controls on the dashboard all began to light up and flash in alarm. Frantically, Padmé began pressing buttons and attempting to steer away, only for the entire ship to shake again and start to inch slowly towards the titanic, open maw of the freighter’s holding bay gaped wide to swallow them.

The goose sat and did nothing while Padmé scrambled, causing her to turn on it with a glare. “Well, I hope you’re right about this,” she told it. “Whoever pulled that tractor beam on us apparently wants to meet.”

She could feel her stomach churning with nerves as she spoke, eyeing the massive freighter typically used by pirates and smugglers to capture smaller ships like it had just taken hers. It had been a far cry, a fantasy, to consider that just maybe her other soulmate could have been Obi Wan, but now she was more focused on simply praying that whoever they were wasn’t an intergalactic criminal who would rather kill her.

Pulling out her blaster, Padmé moved out of the cockpit, goose on her heels. Shadows washed over the ship as it fully entered the freighter’s cargo bay, vibrating ever so slightly as it was set on the ground. A loud rapping on the closed gangplank made her tense, and she hurried over, weapon raised. She was all alone save for one indestructible goose against who knew how many people. She doubted she’d have time to call for help.

_Oh well. Guess I’m talking my way out of it._

Taking a breath, she turned to her goose who had been dead silent beside her and motioned for it to wait behind the door. “You’re my backup, okay?”

The goose honked quietly, gently headbutting her hip.

“Right,” Padmé told it, raising her hood up over her head and pressing the button to open the gangplank. As it lowered, it revealed a group of about five figures swathed in dark clothing and cloth-wrapped heads, as well as two massive and deadly looking security droids.

She holstered her blaster and raised her hands. “Greetings,” she called out. “May I ask why I am being detained?”

“Who are you?” called back one of the masked figures. “Why did you show up?”

Padmé debated lying for a moment, before deciding her true identity was worth a lot more money as well as a higher chance of being left alive for the moment. “My name is Senator Padmé Amidala of the Galactic Republic, and—“

“The Republic?” the figure interrupted. “You who they sent for the auction?”

_The auction?_

Another masked figure elbowed them. “Hey, I thought we promised those other folks we weren’t selling to the Republic.”

The first one whacked them with their blaster rifle. “We’re _selling_ to whoever pays the most. If the Reps wanna fork over more than the CIS to get a single one of their guys back, who are we to stop them?”

Padmé’s mind whirled. These people took something from the Republic? Some _one?_

The one masked figure who had gotten hit protested again. “But, uh, we don’t _have—_ ”

“Shut the kriff up,” retorted the first figure with a harder swing of their rifle, knocking them to the ground this time. The figure then turned back to Padmé. “Sorry, Missy, you never answered my question. You here for the auction?”

“Yes,” Padmé replied immediately. “I am.”

“Well you done fucked up the timing, didn’t you? We put it out that it was two standard days from now.”

“Ah,” said Padmé, still thinking fast. _They’re holding someone here. Could that be…_ “My apologies for the miscommunication. I thought—“

“And,” said the figure. “We didn’t put out an official location yet. How’d you find us anyway?”

The group was advancing closer now, and Padmé resisted the urge to grab her blaster right away. “The Republic has its methods,” she told them, then, going out on a limb, “Especially when you are in possession of someone who belongs with us.”

The blasters around her all clicked at once, and the head figure leaned in close. “How much do you know exactly, little miss?”

“I—“ said Padmé, but the other figures were already circling around the end of the ramp. 

“Do you think we could get more money if we took her as well?” someone was saying, and Padmé was seriously beginning to worry she was about to get herself kidnapped as well and send Anakin into a fit, but then, there was the goose.

A blur of righteous grey swooped past her head and into the face of the head mask with a gooseish bellow of pure, unbridled fury. 

_”Another one!?”_ came a shriek from one of the other figures as they and the droids focused all fire on the goose. The goose’s head snapped around, beak clutching a faintly sparking eye socket of one of the security droids, and fixed Padmé with a single, solid, “HONK.”

That was a _Run,_ if Padmé ever heard one.

Bracing herself, she leaped off the side of the ramp, landing in a crouch and firing between the neck plating of the first guard droid who spotted her. 

Its head blew off. Good.

Padmé yanked her hood back over her head and made a break for the gap where the fallen droid was, taking out two more figures with shots as she ran, bursting through the ring, then continuing to run as she made her way for the nearest door she saw.

A crackling hiss of ozone she would know from anywhere echoing behind her forced her to a stop in her tracks. 

_No. No way._

She turned around, expecting to find Anakin.

Instead, her jaw dropped at the sight of the goose wielding a blue lightsaber.

Obi Wan yanked futilely at his tunic sleeve that was latched firmly in the mouth of one goose and being tugged rapidly down the hallway.

His geese had been behaving normally— goose-standard normal —at one moment, and then in the next, the pair of them had had what he could only describe as a meltdown, howling loudly and running around in circles, tripping over each other and sending feathers flying everywhere. Then, just as randomly, they had turned on Obi Wan, one grabbing his sleeve and the other shoving at him repeatedly in the backside until he consented to being herded off down the hall.

“You do realize I can walk for myself,” he was complaining as down the hall, more shouts and blaster fire began to sound.

Obi Wan paused, confused for a moment as to why chaos had started without him, but his geese were releasing him and flying full tilt down the hallway and around the corner— Force, _why_ were there so many corners? Obi Wan hurried after them, only for a blur of orange to come wheeling around the other end pointing a blaster in Obi Wan’s face at the same time he pointed his in theirs. 

It only took him a second to take in the familiar figure and Force presence before they were yanking their white hood off to reveal Padmé Amidala with the galaxy’s biggest smile on her face.

“I found you,” she breathed. “Oh my stars, Obi Wan, h— hello!”

Obi Wan was very confused. “ _Padmé?_ You’re who they sent to find me?”

Padmé shot him a Very Unimpressed look, though it was belied by the smile that couldn’t seem to fade. “I can see you’re oh-so-excited by that prospect, Master Jedi. No need to look so alarmed, I’m not who they sent.”

“Oh,” Obi Wan nodded like he understood. He did not. “Then why are you here?”

Padmé blinked, biting her lip as a look of uncertainty washed over her expression. “Well, I—“

A “Honk!” interrupted them as a grey Force Goose waddled around the corner, Obi Wan’s lightsaber in its beak. 

“Ah,” Obi Wan said, as Padmé’s smile got impossibly wider and fonder.

Great, the first of his friends to discover his Force Goose was one who had no qualms against teasing him for it. “That’s mine.”

As he bent to take his lightsaber from the goose, Padmé coughed. “That one’s mine, actually.”

“Huh—?” Obi Wan began, but a series of blaster bolts flew past Padmé’s back, and she stumbled forward with a gasp. Hurriedly, Obi Wan caught her, shielding her in his arms and igniting his blade in defence. He winced as she pressed against his wounds, though her soft presence in his arms felt oddly comforting.

She was already pulling away, though, frown on her face. “They hurt you.”

Obi Wan waved her off. “Hardly.”

There was an explosion and they both jumped, before honking sounded again and out of the smoke that began billowing out of the hallway Padmé had came from, appeared a Force Goose.

There was Padmé’s brilliant smile again.

“Yes, erm, you see, I appear to have received…” Obi Wan avoided her gaze and looked just in time to see a third goose appear out of the smoke. 

He froze.

He blinked.

There were still three geese.

_My concussion must have me seeing double. It must. Or— or…_

“I told you,” Padmé said softly, reaching out for his hand. Obi Wan was still so confused he didn’t even fight her taking it. Her fingers were red and swollen with what looked to be bird bites. “The first goose was mine. We found your lightsaber on the ones who tried to stop us when we boarded.”

Obi Wan opened his mouth.

He closed it.

Padmé had a Force Goose. 

But this meant—

He shook his head.

“I understand if you don’t wish to pursue anything,” Padmé continued, running her thumb soothingly over his knuckles. “But… I believe that we are soulmates. Is that right?” The last question she directed to the three geese who had congregated into a clump of judgmental black eyes on them.

“HONK!” they said in unison, bobbing their necks just once in an unmistakable _yes_.

Padmé nodded back at them with a hum, turning again to Obi Wan, warm brown eyes shining with what Obi Wan recognized as _hope_.

_She’s excited. For me. That I’m her— that we’re soulmates. But what about—?_

Obi Wan inhaled sharply, trying to remain in control of the whirlwind his emotions were stirring into. “You only have one goose,” he pointed out carefully, not allowing himself to consider what this could mean, _who_ this could mean. “I have two.”

Padmé’s hopeful expression took on a hint of mischief. “I _did_ have two. I found one of them already.”

His breath catching in his throat, Obi Wan croaked out, “Oh?” He wasn’t going to think about this. He couldn’t. There was no way in the galaxy that he could be so lucky that—

Padmé dipped her head. “Yes.” Her eyes looked up at him through dark lashes. “He’s the one the Jedi Council sent looking for you. He’s been quite worried about you, Obi Wan.”

Obi Wan needed to sit down. 

Oh, there was the ground.

Ow, he was still extremely bruised. The ribs did not like that, oh no.

“Obi Wan!” Padmé hurried to kneel beside him, taking his face in her hands. She really was quite pretty, Obi Wan thought as her face filled his vision to look him over. Anakin was as fortunate to have her as she was to have him—

“Anakin,” he breathed out, and Padmé’s fingers on his face tensed momentarily.

“Yes,” she told him, apprehension showing through her cheer for the first time in their encounter. “How— how do you feel about that, Obi Wan?”

“I—“ _He’s already been the one constant in my life for so long. He’s always been there. And now…_ Obi Wan reined himself in. “I don’t wish to intrude on the two of you and your relationship. I wouldn’t ask—“

He was cut off by Padmé’s laugh. “Of course you already knew about us. Stars, we’re horrible at this. Obi Wan.” She turned his face so she was staring straight into his eyes. “Pardon me for speaking for my husband here, but I know I can say that the both of us would be _delighted_ to have you. You wouldn’t be intruding anywhere, I promise.”

Obi Wan highly doubted that. His head hurt far too much to convince earnest-eyed Padmé of this now, however, so he gently drew away from her, catching her hand again in his own as her face started to fall. “This is a lot to discover at once,” he told her, gently. “Would you mind postponing this conversation until after we’ve gotten out of here?”

Padmé’s mouth opened for a moment like she had something else to say before stopping, pressing her lips together, and nodding. Getting back to her feet, the beautiful woman who was his soulmate kept her hold on his hand and helped pull him up. Their three geese honked happily at each other and at them, running in circles around them as they made their way through the winding maze of the freighter’s hallways once more.

Obi Wan’s ribs and head— and everything, honestly —still throbbed in pain, but between the familiar comfort of his lightsaber in his hands and the warm press of Padmé at his side, subtly allowing him to lean on her and take some of the weight off of his injuries, he felt the best he had in however many days he’d been here. Looking over at her, their eyes met again, and he caught the slightest hint of red in her cheeks as she smiled shyly at him.

One of their geese honked again, and Obi Wan abruptly remembered that if he wanted the geese to go away, he was going to have to kiss her at least once.

Feeling his own face heat slightly, he quickly turned away and focused on the hallway in front of them.

They walked in silence for another minute or so before the shuffle of footsteps was heard, and after a shared look, Obi Wan and Padmé drew lightsaber and blaster and began to face off against another troupe of terrorists— how many of them lived on this damned labyrinth of a ship anyway? This one was larger than some of the other groups, but Obi Wan and Padmé now had additional geese and each other on their sides, so they were able to hold their own.

“How many more of these groups do you expect us to encounter before we get back to the ship?” Obi Wan called to Padmé, deflecting another volley of blaster bolts.

“No idea,” Padmé shot back, literally shooting back and nailing a figure in the shoulder. “I got lost almost the second I left the main hangar. I’ve been following the geese.”

Obi Wan gave her a deadpan look and she fake-glared back. “Hey, the goose led me to you!”

“Seriously?” Obi Wan asked.

“Yep.” Padmé shot around the corner. “Do you have any clue where the hangar is?”

“I found it once, but there were no ships there to steal and— wait a minute, am I actually seeing four geese now?”

As soon as Obi Wan noticed the additional goose flinging itself into the fray and taking down one of the figures with one kick, there was another distinctly not-goose shape skidding into view, kicking out one fighter’s knees at the same time he whipped out a blazing blue lightsaber and sliced another’s gun in half and Force-shoving them into the wall.

Obi Wan’s breath caught, watching Anakin hold his own, then again as he saw the very moment Anakin registered four geese flying around him and stopped where he was to count.

Anakin had totally turned his back to one of the figures on the floor rising back up with one blaster pointed at his head, and Obi Wan didn’t event think as he stepped out from behind his cover, braved the recently relocated shoulder to grab the blaster still on his belt, aimed through the pain, and fired.

The figure went down.

Anakin hilt-bashed the last figure in the head with his lightsaber and whirled around to catch Obi Wan’s eyes, hair wild and eyes wilder.

_That’s my soulmate,_ Obi Wan thought faintly.

_That’s Anakin…_

“Obi Wan!” Anakin called, stumbling over a goose who honked angrily and running down the hallway towards him with the flock of geese on his heels. Obi Wan found himself frozen in place, unable to move.

The moment Padmé stepped out from behind the other corner, Anakin tripped again over nothing this time, flailing to regain balance and sliding to a stop. “Padmé?! Why the hells are you here? I told you to stay on Coruscant! Obi Wan, are you alright?”

Anakin was moving for them again as Padmé was primly telling him, “Give me a decent reason to listen to your orders, Knight Skywalker, and maybe I’ll consider doing it.”

“I was just trying to keep everyone safe!” Anakin protested, prowling around Obi Wan while looking him over and prodding at him through the Force Bond. “Master, what’s wrong? What did they do? They hurt you, but your’re trembling in the Force, what’s—“ 

“I’m fine, Anakin,” Obi Wan promised, trying to build his shields back up all while attempting a wave of soothing energy through their Bond.

“I understand what you were trying to do, Ani, but it wasn’t necessary,” Padmé was saying. “I told you I was going to look for our soulmate, and I found him.”

Obi Wan felt Anakin freeze at the same time he did. Forcing himself to meet Anakin’s wide blue eyes, he watched his friend blink owlishly at him, at Padmé, back to him, Padmé again, the geese, and Obi Wan once more.

“Y-you?” Anakin whispered, staring at Obi Wan with an unreadable expression, face pale. “Those are your geese? You’re my—“

“Yes,” Obi Wan cut in, unable to keep quiet. _Oh, stars, he hates this. Why wouldn’t he?_ “So it seems. But Anakin—“

“I’m so sorry,” Anakin blurted out, wringing his hands.

“You’re what?” Obi Wan asked, feeling like he was dangling over a crevice and slipping fast.

Padmé started. “Maybe we should—“

“HOOOONK!” wailed all four geese at once like an air raid siren, and the next thing Obi Wan knew, Anakin was getting knocked straight into him and sending them both tumbling over while a loud _bang!_ lit up the entire corridor behind them.

Instinctually, Obi Wan wrapped himself around Anakin in an attempt to shield him from whatever danger was afoot, but surprisingly he felt the pressure of great wings spread around him as a goose tried to shield the both of them. 

Craning his head to the side, he could see Padmé next to them and buried under a pile of three more geese, and the hall’s emergency blast doors beginning to shut through the smoke, gradually cutting off the blaster bolts that had began to rain on them.

When the doors closed, Padmé burrowed her way out of her goose pile. “I’m alright! How are you two?”

“I’m fine,” Anakin replied, carefully sitting both himself and Obi Wan up. “This one needs to stop pulling heroics when he’s injured though.”

“Agreed,” said Padmé, brushing her orange tunic off and scooting towards them.

Obi Wan huffed, blowing strands of hair out of his face and trying to shuffle away from where he was still awkwardly entangled with Anakin, who was not making it easy as he continued to paw and make faces at Obi Wan’s injuries. “Honestly, the both of you,” he chided, batting away his friend’s— _soulmate’s_ hands.

He was very close to Anakin’s face from this angle, he realized, looking into dark blue eyes. 

“Hi,” Obi Wan breathed, internally kicking himself. _How eloquent, Negotiator._

Anakin’s lip quirked. “Hi, yourself.”

There were red bite marks on his face. Obi Wan assumed they were from the geese; that didn’t exactly seem like Padmé’s style. He reached out and traced one with his thumb. Anakin’s eyes fluttered shut, and Obi Wan found himself resisting the urge to let his hand linger. “You’re rather marked up as well, I notice,” he managed to say

Anakin mirrored Obi Wan’s hand motion, sweeping a thumb gently over Obi Wan’s bruised eye, other hand hovering lightly over his injured ribs. “If you’re trying to tell me one of the geese did all of that to you, I’m punting those little fuckers out the airlock.”

“Oh, please,” Obi Wan felt a laugh bubbling up despite himself, bruised body aching pleasantly with the tremors of it. Anakin was grinning too, and Obi Wan lightly pushed his face away. Then, a thought came to him. “Why did you apologize earlier?”

Smile fading, Anakin held Obi Wan’s stare briefly before his gaze flitted away in a familiar act of nerves. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Anakin.”

“Look, it’s—“ Anakin huffed, scowling into his own lap. “I know you don’t like soulmates, and now you’re stuck with _me_ when I’m already a big enough pain in the ass. You don’t have to pretend you aren’t bothered by it just to spare my feelings.”

_What?_ Obi Wan poked incredulously at their Bond, finding waves of apprehension, insecurity, disappointment, and— joy, threaded through all the rest. Despite all his conflicting emotions, Anakin was _happy_ about this. About Obi Wan.

Something inside Obi Wan’s chest lit up briefly before he quickly extinguished it.

_But why would he consider himself undesirable?_

“I’m also ‘stuck’ with Padmé if you might have noticed. Are you so quick as to disparage her?” Obi Wan pointed out, the woman in question making a bemused noise.

Anakin blanched again, turning to his wife with pleading eyes. “No, that’s not what I—“

“I know, Anakin,” Padmé told him, reaching out and grasping his hand reassuringly before nodding back towards Obi Wan. Obi Wan shot her a grateful look for being willing to sit there and let the pair of them try and sort out their entire, years long mess.

“As I was saying, you are very fortunate to have her,” Obi Wan continued, deciding to be bold and reach to rest a hand on Anakin’s knee. “And she is very fortunate to have you, as would anyone. So please, don’t ever think otherwise.”

Anakin’s eyes narrowed, his gloved fingers landing hesitantly over Obi Wan’s hand on his knee. “As would anyone, but not you?”

Obi Wan barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “You’re making a lot of presumptions. I’ve only had this information for a scant few minutes, could I have some time to process first? Contrary to your apparent belief, I have nothing against soulmates, nor against having one myself.”

Anakin sputtered, mouth working but no sound coming out.

“And,” Obi Wan added, making sure to smile so Anakin knew he was only teasing, “not all of us have been married for years, you know. I need to be able to think.”

“Haven’t you, though?” Padmé asked with an odd note in her voice, and Obi Wan paused. 

“Haven’t we what?”

“Been married,” Anakin grumbled, shooting his wife a Look. “Ignore her, she likes to tease me about this. It’s because we live together, work as a team, look after a kid, lo…uh, like each other, have the Bond, and all that. Makes us sound kinda…”

“Married,” Obi Wan finished faintly, entire world rearranging itself to fit this new data into the picture because _oh._

_Shit._

“Like I said though, it doesn’t have to mean anything!” Anakin rushed to add. “I— I like things the way they are now, I wouldn’t ask anything more of you. I’m just happy to—“ He hesitated, stroking the back of Obi Wan’s hand. “I’m just happy to have you in my life, no matter how much we drive each other crazy, you know? I never want to lose that.”

Obi Wan was glad he was sitting down, because the weight of all the truth behind Anakin’s emotions was staggering. 

Padmé slid closer to him as well, looking at him solemnly. “You told me you didn’t wish to intrude, and I told you that you couldn’t. You’re already a part of our lives, Obi Wan. We’re simply worried we’ll be stepping on your boundaries.”

Obi Wan wanted to laugh. The Force did not grant him luck like this. This wasn’t how his life worked. There was no way that after all this time, everything would be _this_ simple. 

Could it?

“And I thank you for that,” Obi Wan told Padmé, coming to a decision. “I thank both of you. Though honestly, I’m not too sure how exactly our situation would make our lives change. As you’ve both mentioned, Anakin and I spend much of our time together as it is. I enjoy my friendship with you, Padmé. We can all carry on exactly as we were, the only difference being soulmates would make is—“

“We could love?” Padmé asked.

Obi Wan sighed. “No, Jedi can love.” He shot Anakin a _stop feeding her false facts_ look, receiving a petulant pout in reply. He sighed again. “I was _saying_ that we could make a commitment. To each other, above prior commitments, no matter what they were, as Soul Bonds are sacred.”

“Like a marriage,” Anakin said, gesturing between himself and Padmé.

“Yes, the pair of you did seem to beat your geese to that point,” Obi Wan commented. “Though marriages are usually only for romantic partnerships, and, ah…” He trailed off in horror, not knowing where in the hells he was going with _that_ , blast it, did he just accidentally proposition the two of them?

He was going to blame the fucking concussion.

_You liked them before the fucking concussion,_ a small voice in the back of his concussed head pointed out.

_Yes, but they weren’t supposed to fucking know that,_ Obi Wan snapped back at it.

The pair had turned to look at each other the moment Obi Wan had said it, and now Anakin was looking at him with the same expression he made when he saw a particularly large spider.

Obi Wan rather wanted to die. 

“I mean, we already told you we want you in our life, so, uh.” Anakin’s voice was definitely climbing upwards. “That included the, erm, the romantic stuff, if you want.”

Obi Wan’s brain did not compute. “What.”

Anakin looked at Padmé again, who radiated amusement from both of their panic. Obi Wan was glad she was enjoying herself. 

“We’re saying that you’re very easy to love, Obi Wan,” Padmé told him, reaching out and taking his hand in the one that wasn’t holding Anakin’s, connecting the three of them. “We’d be more than happy to love you, if you would permit it.”

Obi Wan looked between her and Anakin, both staring at him with tentative, warm eyes, both presences twined tightly around each other— and yet with threads of that twine branching away, reaching out. For him. 

He had to ask. “Anakin?” he said, searching his partner’s feelings.

Anakin sucked in a breath. “Well, we’ve kind of done everything else, you know? If we stayed exactly the same except sometimes I’d get to kiss you _and_ Padmé without having to banish a magic goose, I wouldn’t need anything else in the universe. I’ve kinda been a bit in love with you for a while, Master.”

Obi Wan could feel himself starting to smile before the emotions even settled in side of him. _You. It’s always been you. How could it have possibly been anyone else?_

“I think,” he said, meeting both of their anxious stares. “I think as the love is already there for me, it would be foolish to ignore it.”

Anakin’s side of the Bond went aquiver like a live wire. “We’re doing this?”

Obi Wan felt another laugh coming. He was so _happy_. “Force help us all, we’re doing this.”

Padmé let out a tinkling laugh of delight, very carefully pulling Obi Wan into a warm hug. She smelled sweet, clean, and her hug was just tight enough to be grounding and yet not aggravating of injuries.

He could get used to this.

“I know I can’t kiss you properly yet because we need to show the geese to the archives for the records, but—“ Padmé’s soft lips slid briefly against his cheek. “—I’m glad it’s you.”

“I’m glad too,” Obi Wan whispered back, pressing a kiss of his own to her hair.

He looked over at Anakin, who was watching them with a faint blush and eager eyes. Obi Wan cocked a brow, sending him a playful nudge in the Force. _Yes? Was there something you needed?_

Grin spreading across his face, Anakin was suddenly in Obi Wan’s space and wrapping long arms around both him and Padmé, curly head nuzzling into the other side of his neck, breath ticklish against Obi Wan’s skin. “Hi, soulmates!”

Padmé giggled back and Obi Wan snorted, running a hand through Anakin’s tangled curls. “We’re going to be this ridiculous all the time, aren’t we?”

“Sure are.”

“Yup. Oh, damn,” Anakin’s voice buzzed in his ear. “Have they been watching us the entire time?”

The three of them turned to see the four geese, lined up in a row, watching them silently with their heads cocked to the same degree.

“That’s not creepy at all,” Padmé commented.

The geese’s heads snapped to their right, gazes zeroing in down the hall.

Obi Wan followed them to see a single terrorist frozen at the end. “Sithspit.”

“Hey!” The fighter yelled down another hallway, waving their arms. They’re down—“

Anakin pulled the blaster from Obi Wan’s belt and shot them, but the sound of raised voices and running footsteps had the three of them pulling each other back to their feet quickly and taking off again.

As they ran, four geese yodeling at their sides, Anakin’s hand brushed down his flank to put the blaster back on his belt. “Don’t get all huffy on me about ‘uncivilized’ weapons, I saw you use this to save my life earlier.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Obi Wan retorted, breathing heavily through the reemerging pain throughout his body. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Anakin sent him a crooked grin, Padmé coming up to his side. “How are you doing, Obi Wan?” she asked. “Usually, the pair of you are outrunning me by a bit.”

Anakin’s side of the Bond spiked with concern, and Obi Wan realized belatedly that agreeing to the romantic part of a Soul Bond meant that both of his soulmates now had the right to worry endlessly over him in the name of love.

Did it feel rather nice? Perhaps, but he was hardly an invalid. These two tended to overreact anyway.

“I am fine,” he complained, making an effort to run faster. “I did rescue myself, after all.”

“What do you call us?” Anakin exclaimed.

Obi Wan felt a smirk growing. “My backup.”

A goose flying over his head barked at him and Obi Wan laughed. “Yes, you are backup as well.”

“I did not drag my ass across the galaxy and back here in under two days to have my efforts lumped in with the demon birds!”

“Coruscant’s barely an hour away, you know,” Padmé said.

“I was on Agamar before that!” Anakin whined at her, ducking to let a goose fly back and attack their pursuers.

“Come now, Padmé, Anakin can’t help being a little late sometimes,” Obi Wan teased, turning around and batting away a stray blaster bolt with his saber.

“Oh my gods, see if I rescue either of you again.”

“That implies that we’re going to get into trouble again. Don’t jinx us, please.”

“How did you even manage to get into this situation, Obi Wan?” Padmé asked, grabbing both of their arms and tugging them around a side corner. “The ones in charge just greeted me as I came in, had your lightsaber _with them_ , were able to be overpowered by myself and a single goose, and didn’t even have a solid plan on how this ‘auction’ of theirs was going to be run?”

“They have piloting skills, know their way around a spaceship battle, and technology,” Obi Wan defended himself. “They got me by luring me down to the planet and setting off electro-pulse charges. They don’t have any more of them, or so I think, as they attempted to use them on my feathered friends here and set a rather large fire.”

“Is that why part of the ship is in flames?” Padmé asked.

“Precisely.”

Anakin swore. “Aren’t those things illegal?”

“Very,” Padmé confirmed. “But there’s no way to apprehend and arrest the entire ship full of them now with just the three of us.”

“Actually,” Obi Wan said, “There were only a couple of security droids guarding the bridge, too much for myself and two geese, but maybe now with four geese and three of us we could…”

He shot Anakin a meaningful look, and after a quick mental back-and-forth communicated through facial expressions, Anakin said, “Yeah, you’re right, that could work.”

“Hang on,” Padmé said, bracing herself against Anakin and kicking a lone assailant in the gut. “You two seriously aren’t planning to try and storm that bridge on your own.”

“We’ll have the geese,” Anakin pointed out, stepping around Obi Wan’s back to cover him with his saber. 

“Obi Wan is injured!”

“This was my assignment; I’ll be sent right back out to catch them anyway if I return home first, and by that time, they’ll have moved and it will take longer to track them down again. This is easiest.”

“You can’t be serious!” Padmé protested as Anakin and Obi Wan began doing their silent communication thing again.

“Actually, Padmé’s right,” Obi Wan said.

“Thank you, Obi Wan—“

“I think the only way I can remember making it to the bridge is right through the area currently on fire.” 

Anakin looked pensive, starting to open his mouth.

“You are not fireproof, Anakin,” Padmé told him firmly.

Anakin closed his mouth.

“Let’s just get to the ship,” Padmé urged. “We can call for help there— no, wait! There’s a tractor beam around the majority of the ship. We won’t be able to get out at all unless we find the off switch for that.”

“Tractor beams don’t cover the escape pod areas, that’s part of their production safety standards,” Anakin countered, swinging his saber at a door hatch and sealing them off from the enemy temporarily. “These guys jettisoned all of theirs a long time ago, so I was able to dock in an empty spot. I can fly us out and into hyperspace before they even know we’re gone and have time to try and go after us.”

“You found the escape pods? I’ve been trying to find those blasted things for the past few hours!” Obi Wan groused

“At least they were already gone. You saved yourself disappointment.” Anakin pointed out, shuffling the group down a side hallway.

“Do you remember where the pods are?”

“Uh.” Anakin faltered, not wanting to admit he had simply followed the geese. “I think I had passed something a little while ago, a turn, and then another one…”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Obi Wan soothed mockingly.

“Hey. You were stuck on this ship longer and couldn’t find—“

“There they are!” Padmé pointed out, halting directly in front of a row of escape hatches. 

“I found them,” Anakin announced. 

“You did Not,” Obi Wan told him.

“Did too.” 

“Did n— no, I’m not playing this game with you.”

“Fine. Did too, though.”

“For the love of, no you did—“

“Anakin?” Padmé interrupted, geese honking around her as she poked her head through the open escape hatch. “There’s only one seat in here.”

“Oh, right.” Anakin stepped forward. “I took one of the stealthier military fighters. The cockpit’s there, and you two are in luck that in the back there’s another spot for forward and rear gunner.”

“Will there be room for the geese?” Obi Wan asked doubtfully. He knew the model Anakin was talking about, and there was barely any space for the three people needed for the tiny ships.

Anakin examined the four honking geese chasing each other’s tails for a second, then Obi Wan and Padmé, then inside the hatch. “We could definitely squeeze three, but not all four…” The solution came quickly and obviously, just as the following sketto swarm in his stomach did.

_Oh._

Resolving not to trip on his own fucking tongue this time, Anakin turned around to face Obi Wan and Padmé who were looking at him in concern.

“Okay, solution,” Anakin said, clapping his hands together. “I’ll need to be the one to fly us out of here, so that means you two get to share the back for the entire way home.”

Padmé rolled her eyes. “‘Entire way’. It’s an hour at most!”

“That’s still one hour I have to be without either of you!” Anakin retorted, pleased to see Padmé’s eyes soften at his words and hear Obi Wan’s faint, fond, _”Anakin…”_

“So,” Anakin continued, drawing out the ‘o’ and trying to calm his trembling extremities. “That means that since you get to spend time with Obi Wan then, Padmé, I get to make two of the geese go away now, as we won’t be able to fit all of them, and flying with mine on my lap is a pain.” He finished the last sentence in one long rush of breath, carefully examining the faces of his two soulmates.

Obi Wan’s expression hadn’t broken, but there was a playful light in his eyes and across their Bond drifted a brief yet strong pulse of desire. 

Anakin shivered again, unable to meet his gaze.

Padmé was appraising them both with a tilt of her head. “Mmm. I won’t lie and say it won’t make me impatient for my own kiss, but…” She paused, innocent grin stained with evil intent. “I also wouldn’t complain. Go right ahead and don’t mind me.”

Obi Wan laughed. “Well, as long as we have the lady’s approval. Don’t we need to save the geese to be registered, though? I don’t believe we have a recording device.”

Anakin shook his head. “Not if you and Padmé save yours to register. If she’s connected to the both of us, our link is the definite third. It’s all the proof we need.”

“Clever,” Obi Wan said, still managing to hold a devastating smile through a bruised face.

The approval set a part of Anakin on fire.

“Well?” Obi Wan asked, stepping forward.

Anakin took steps of his own, meeting his Master in the middle where Obi Wan’s lovely eyes were just a tad lower than his own.

_The Force gave me you... you’re meant to be with me_

Anakin hadn’t even realized he had hesitated, simply drinking in Obi Wan’s presence along with Padmé’s hand that had migrated to his back, until Obi Wan murmured, “Come here,” and reached up to cup Anakin’s cheek, sliding it backwards until it was wrapped around the back of Anakin’s head and guiding him into a kiss

It was supposed to be a brief kiss, they both knew this. Right after his lips connected with Obi Wan’s, Anakin could hear the twin honks and poofing noises that sent his and Obi Wan’s geese back to wherever they came from. 

But.

Obi Wan’s hand was in his hair, tight and perfect.

The small groan Anakin could hear vibrating in the back of his Master’s throat made his toes curl.

The outside cloud of Padmé’s desire was growing fast, drifting around them and enveloping them and igniting Anakin’s own emotions even further.

And. 

Obi Wan was an _extremely_ good kisser.

Sensation swept over Anakin as Obi Wan’s lips gently caressed his own with a gentle suction, moving in and out like the tides on the edge of a sea, ready to drag him out and consume him.

The chills rolling down his spine made him lightheaded, in need of air, and as soon as he gasped, there was the slick slide of a tongue tracing along the line of his lower lip. Obi Wan’s other hand was rested against Anakin’s hip, thumb stroking back and forth over the sharp edge of his hip.

All this stimulation at once— and this was nothing, oh sweet Force, they were just _beginning_ —was pushing him further, further out of his body and into the Sith-damned spiritual realm; until a particularly skillful stroke of tongue by Obi Wan over the roof of Anakin’s mouth, combined with Padmé’s single finger dragging down his back and the hand grasping his hair giving a firm tug forced an embarrassing, high pitched noise out of his throat. 

Hurriedly, Anakin stumbled backwards out of the embrace, hand over his mouth while still in partial shock. Obi Wan hadn’t moved from his spot, peering at Anakin with what Anakin could recognize through their heightened Bond as nervousness. Padmé was standing between them, eyes dancing between them uncertainly.

“Alright?” Obi Wan asked.

_”Alright,”_ Anakin found himself echoing incredulously, needing to walk forward and give Obi Wan a second kiss, relishing the surprised grunt Obi Wan made upon impact, followed by the happy twining together of their auras wrapped up inside of each other. 

“There’s your answer, Obi Wan.” Padmé’s laugh was a reminder for Anakin to break this kiss to turn and kiss her as well. His wife continued to chuckle through their kiss, not letting him get too far before slipping away from him. “Aren’t we supposed to be escaping, husband of mine?”

“Give him a moment,” Obi Wan teased, and Anakin had to glare at his stupid handsome face that was still looking good while covered in bruises and also now had that smug smirk edged in sharpness lilting crookedly to the side.

“I’ll leave you both here,” Anakin threatened, unable to keep looking at either of their faces when they were… being Like That.

More voices began to shout in the distance. “Oh,” Anakin muttered, hurrying for the hatch. “I’m just going to— to get in and disconnect and then pull up just a bit so the back can open up and then you and the birds can get in. They’ll have to sit on your laps!”

Obi Wan and Padmé watched together while he scurried inside, yelling back that he “won’t leave without you!”, turning to each other while their geese prowled around each other, nipping at the hems of their tunics.

Padmé hooked her pinky finger around Obi Wan’s, swinging their arms together. “You know, an hour back to Coruscant in separate seats we’ll be sharing with stinking birds—“ She cut off with a gasp as Obi Wan stuck his hand in the mouth of a goose trying to bite at her leg for it. “Hey, careful, he’s injured!”

Obi Wan did roll his eyes at this. “You say it like the word ‘invalid’”

“Surely not that bad,” Padmé teased, lightly taking his freshly-bitten hand and cradling it between her own. “As I was saying, since we’ll hardly have the comfortable ride back home, you still owe me a decent kiss of my own, Master Jedi.”

Obi Wan smiled, raising her hand to his lips and kissing it. “I shall keep that in mind, milady.”

Padmé’s smile was gorgeous, but then the geese were honking and the voices were right outside the hallway leading to the escape pods, and for once, Anakin was right on time as the lock hissed with the sound of a ship locking into the pod hatch again. 

“In you go,” Obi Wan told Padmé, guiding her into the hatch and the two geese next, dodging more hissing and nips and diving after them just as the blaster bolts began singing into their corridor. 

He landed directly on one of the geese, who shrieked angrily and further aggravated Obi Wan’s injuries as he was made to nudge it out of his way all while trying not to aggravate his recently relocated shoulder and shove his way into the seat, all while goose claws dug at his leg and almost caught him in the eye.

Feathers flying over his shoulder, more angry squarks, and muffled cursing from behind him told him Padmé was facing the same problems as he was. Force, Padmé was indeed wonderful, but Obi Wan was not a good enough man to honestly say the only reason he looked forward to kissing Padmé was Padmé herself.

As their canopy closed and the ship maneuvered away, Anakin’s voice sounded over the headset Obi Wan had awkwardly crammed over his concussed head— oh, he should definitely get this looked at. Wow. Yes. Perhaps Padmé should do most of the gunner’s jobs.

“How is everyone back there?”

“Hanging on,” Padmé reported,

“Literally,” Obi Wan added. “Our friends have clawed feet and they’re digging into my thigh.”

“Sorry, Master,” Anakin responded, steering them around the massive hulk of the freighter.

“No need for apologies,” Obi Wan exhaled, trying to casually adjust the goose in his lap. 

The goose hissed, but still made no motion to actually hurt him. No motion at all, actually. The damn thing wouldn’t move.

_However…_

“The goose brought us all together, I can’t be too upset,” Obi Wan finished.

“Good,” Anakin replied. “Remember you just said you can’t be too upset with me, though.”

“Why?” Obi Wan and Padmé asked at the same time, Obi Wan’s internal calculators for predicting Anakin’s bullshit were picking up speed.

“I may or may not be about to try and fly above the tractor beam, get us over the freighter bridge, then bomb it,” Anakin replied, casual-as-you-please. “It can’t run away if it can’t control itself. We can send someone right back for it. You can rest, Master.”

“I like this plan,” Padmé spoke up. “I can help drop it once you get over the position.”

Obi Wan found this plan lacking in several aspects, but Anakin’s mind wrapped warm around his own made him more susceptible to convincing. It had been a long few days, and stars, was he tired. If the bridge plan could get this job out of way faster…

“Are you sure you can outfly whatever defensive precautions they will have in place?” he asked.

“Why, Master.” Obi Wan could hear the familiar, sunshine-lit smirk curled across Anakin’s mouth. “We’re soulmates, you should know me by now. Have faith.”

_We’re soulmates…_

“What have I gotten myself into?” Obi Wan faux-lamented, sending a brush of exasperated affection across the Bond.

Anakin brushed back against him fondly. “Think of it as another adventure. Alright, hang on everyone!”

The ship banked hard to the right, Obi Wan’s stomach dipping with the movement and with nerves both. 

Padmé’s hand reached around their seats and Obi Wan took it, following Anakin’s instructions and holding on tightly.

Let this new adventure begin.

“HONK!” agreed his goose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ADDENDUM that this is indeed an AU where Anakin does _not_ fall and he and his soulmates live on together happily ever after. Also, Palpatine gets found out as a Sith Lord eventually and then everyone remembers how Padmé’s goose tried to kill him, so now the Jedi Order is doing research into whether Soul Geese can detect Sith Lords. The End.
> 
> Looool the povs kinda ran into chaos switching at the end, hope everything was still good!
> 
> I'm SO glad y'all came along for my silly little wild goose chase! If you liked (or even if you didn't) let me know in the comments below! 
> 
> OR, come say hi to me on **tumblr** at my blog where I flail about Star Wars, [@twilightofthe](https://twilightofthe.tumblr.com/)  
> Later, gators!


End file.
